Technical Product Owner - Software Applications

Thales is a global technology leader with more than 83,000 employees on five continents. With over 7,500 people in the UK, operating across defence, space, aerospace, and digital security, we help build a future we can all trust. Thales supports the security and stability of our nation by providing extraordinary technology to our customers, as well as delivering social value to the UK with our products and services.

Thales is transforming the way in which we deliver our tools to engineers. In this role you will be helping to build the next generation of Engineering Environments in the UK using modern deployment methods on a cloud based platform.

As a Technical Product Owner, you will work both as part of an agile development team and as part of our Technical Leadership team. You will maximise the value of the products delivered by the development / deployment team and are in charge of satisfying the needs of the internal customers. You will also act as the primary interface between the development team, the Portfolio Product Owner and the end users of the engineering environments. You will also act as the Technical Authority/Architect for your specific area.

Key responsibilities:

• Represents the engineering customers/users of the Engineering Environments.
• Specifies the needs, validates the acceptance criteria and approves the completed features.
• Defines the order in which the features for their team will be developed and works with the Portfolio Product Owner and other Product Owners to ensure that this fits with the objectives for the overall team.
• Takes important decisions concerning the direction the solutions for their team.
• Is accountable for the Product Backlog for their team in terms of content and priorities.
• Collects feedback from end users and other stakeholders during iteration reviews

Right for this role?

Ideally you'll have a software or systems engineering background in order to understand and credibly represent & promote best practice ways of working and tooled up processes.  One of these roles will champion the non-LEWIS applications (old and new, and how we archive programme work securely), and the other will be more cloud software development environment biased.

We recruit at many levels so we would be very interested to hear from you regardless of your length of experience. However, the following would be very beneficial:

• Thorough understanding of, and experience of applying, the current best practices for software development including: DevSecOps, Agile, CI/CD, TDD, BDD, XP and Lean.
• Understanding of both cloud and secure development environments to be able to architect and improve both existing and new bespoke environments.
• Ability to define and implement a suite of service offerings to support their architected development environments including required tooling, infrastructure, and internal services.
• Good understanding of cloud and enabling technologies and practices including Kubernetes, Containers, GitOps.

Experience in some or all of the following software applications is a plus:

• Attlassian Suite (Jira, Bitbucket, Confluence)
• Jfrog Platform (Artifactory/XRay)
• GitLab
• Black Duck
• Siemens Polarion

Thales is a great place to work so diversity, integrity and a passion for what we do are very important drivers for us. We are looking for people from a broad range of engineering disciplines, so no matter your background we would love to hear from you.

Benefits:

• Performance-related bonus
• Half day every Friday, usually finishing around 13:00
• 28 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) with opportunity to buy up to 40 hours/year (pro rata)
• 24 hours volunteering paid for
• Private healthcare
• Pension scheme
• Life cover
• 24/7 Employee Assistance Program and access to mental wellbeing app
• Employee discount shopping schemes on major brands and retailers
• Gym membership discounts

Security Clearance Requirement:

Due to the nature of the work that we do at Thales, many of our roles are subject to security restrictions. This role requires you to be a UK National and achieve Security Clearance (SC) without any caveats. It would be advantageous if currently held, however, if not currently held, it is a requirement that the successful applicant undergo, achieve, and maintain SC Clearance prior to commencing employment. If approved by the MOD, a dual national from a non-ITAR country may be considered. 

To be eligible for full SC, you generally need to have resided in the UK for the last 5 years.  In some circumstances, a minimum of 3 years’ residence in the UK over the last 5 years may be accepted, with additional overseas checks.

Please visit the UKSV website for further guidance: 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels/national-security-vetting-clearance-levels.

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At Thales, we ensure equal opportunities, pay and working conditions for all. The benefits we offer include private medical insurance, buying or selling annual leave, cycle to work schemes, employee discounts, paid volunteering day, stocks and shares, annual bonus and much more depending on the role. Read more about our benefits here.
 

We are committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued for who they are and the unique strengths they bring. Discover more about our programmes, employee networks, wellbeing policies, and inclusive features here.

If this role isn’t quite right for you, we encourage you to join our talent community where your details will be shared with our recruitment teams for other potential opportunities. Join the Talent Community here.

Join Thales in the UK – Innovate with us and shape the future!