Product Manager at Hire Resolve

Job Purpose: 

• The Product Manager, internally referred to as the Product Owner, will have end-to-end accountability for an IT product throughout its full lifecycle, from initial concept and implementation through to ongoing operation, enhancement and eventual retirement.
• This is a senior ownership role rather than a coordination role. The successful candidate will act as the single point of accountability for the product's financial performance, strategy, roadmap, stakeholder relationships, vendor and service performance, technical direction, architecture, security and risk.
• The ideal candidate will combine strong commercial and product management ability with genuine technical depth and the confidence to influence senior stakeholders and make evidence-based decisions.

Key Responsibilities
Financial & Commercial Ownership

• Take ownership of the product's total cost of ownership (TCO), including both operational and change-related costs.
• Manage product budgets, costs, unit economics and monthly budget variances.
• Track contracts, renewals and vendor-related expenditure.
• Review and approve product-related invoices before payment.
• Provide annual, data-driven recommendations regarding product investment and lifecycle decisions.
• Make informed commercial recommendations regarding vendors, renewals, renegotiations or exits.

Product Strategy & Lifecycle Management

• Define the product vision, purpose, users, value proposition and strategic objectives.
• Own and maintain a rolling 12+ month product roadmap.
• Ensure the roadmap considers business capability, stakeholders, data and integrations, technology, and risk and compliance.
• Determine and defend the product's lifecycle strategy, including whether to retain, grow, consolidate, migrate or retire the product.
• Ensure initiatives have clear business sponsors, KPIs and measurable outcomes.
• Track and demonstrate value realisation, including revenue enabled, costs avoided and operational efficiencies.

Stakeholder Management & Business Partnership

• Act as a strategic technology advisor to business stakeholders.
• Understand business needs and challenge requests based on value, cost, feasibility and risk.
• Build and manage relationships with business leaders, users, technical teams and other key stakeholders.
• Conduct regular business and product reviews.
• Manage stakeholder expectations and resolve conflicts constructively.
• Represent the voice of the customer in prioritisation and investment decisions.

Service & Vendor Performance

• Take overall accountability for the product's service performance, regardless of the delivery model or vendors involved.
• Monitor SLAs, vendor performance, service trends, user adoption and customer satisfaction.
• Identify performance issues and drive evidence-based escalation and resolution.
• Work closely with the Service Owner, who manages day-to-day service operations.
• Make recommendations regarding vendor renewal, renegotiation or replacement.

Security, Risk & Compliance

• Own the product's ongoing security, risk and compliance posture.
• Ensure compliance with relevant requirements, including POPIA and GDPR.
• Drive access, identity and privilege management principles such as least privilege and MFA/SSO.
• Ensure vendor security requirements and attestations are appropriately managed.
• Ensure business continuity and disaster recovery documentation and testing are in place.
• Identify, remediate, accept or escalate product-related risks and ensure residual risks are formally reviewed.

Customer, Market & Technology Insight

• Stay informed about market developments, competitors, emerging technologies and industry trends.
• Conduct customer discovery and use market insight to influence the product roadmap.
• Identify opportunities for innovation, automation and AI.
• Provide thought leadership and influence product and technology strategy at leadership level.
• Translate industry and technology trends into practical business opportunities.

Technical & Architecture Ownership

• Take ownership of key technical and architectural decisions relating to the product.
• Understand the product's technology stack, integrations, APIs, data flows and technical debt.
• Partner with Enterprise Architecture, Cloud, Identity and Security teams.
• Evaluate build-versus-buy decisions and modernisation opportunities.
• Ensure technical decisions support scalability, resilience, performance and security.
• Work within established technology and governance standards.

Governance & Ways of Working

The Product Owner will work within the Product and Service Management framework and maintain key product artefacts, including:

• Product Definition and Product Charter.
• Stakeholder Map and RACI.
• Total Cost of Ownership workbook.
• 12+ month rolling product roadmap.
• Product KPIs and value-realisation measures.

The role will work within established tools and governance processes, including:

• Wrike for project management.
• GitLab for development.
• FreshService for support.
• CAB and ITIL principles for change management.

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering or a related field.
• Product Management certification such as Pragmatic or SAFe PO/PM would be advantageous.
• Minimum 5 years' experience in one or more of the following:
• IT Product Ownership
• Technical Product Management
• Senior Technical roles
• Solution Architecture or Solution Delivery roles
• Experience owning or managing the financial performance, P&L or TCO of a product or platform.
• Strong technical background in areas such as:
• IT Architecture
• Cloud
• Software Development
• Systems Integration
• APIs
• Data
• Experience making technical and architectural decisions.
• Experience managing vendors, contracts and service providers.
• Strong knowledge of IT trends, technologies and best practices.
• Logistics and/or warehousing industry experience would be highly advantageous.