Lead Platform Product Manager

Join a team at the heart of the global economy! The Department for Business and Trade (“DBT”) and Inspire People are partnering together to bring you an exciting opportunity for a Lead Platform Product Manager . You will lead the transformation of the DBT Platform ensuring the platform is robust, secure, scalable and efficient. You will own the roadmap to achieve this vision ensuring it aligns with the department’s digital transformation goals. Salary between £67,170 – £87,264 (including allowances) plus excellent Civil Service benefits including 27% pension contribution. Salary is dependent on location and technical skills as assessed at interview. Flexible, hybrid working from London, Cardiff, Darlington, Belfast, Birmingham, Salford and Edinburgh.

We are hosting a Q&A for all interested candidates to find out more about the role on Tuesday 16th October at 12.00-13.00. Click here to reserve your virtual seat

About the role
This is a technical and strategically critical role within the Technology portfolio at DBT, overseeing a large and complex platform that supports both internal and external services. You will lead the transformation of the DBT Platform ensuring the platform is robust, secure, scalable and efficient. You will own the roadmap to achieve this vision ensuring it aligns with the department’s digital transformation goals. This requires collaboration with technical architects, engineering leads, cyber security and platform users. As part of the Product and Delivery Leadership Team, you’ll play a key role in shaping how they work across DBT, bringing your experience of technical operations and leading platform teams. You’ll work closely with colleagues across DDaT to understand the organisation’s future needs and help teams validate and deliver against them.

You’ll also lead on communicating your team’s work to ministers and senior Civil Service leaders bringing clarity, insight and impact to the conversation. This is a technical leadership role requiring experience with cloud-hosted platforms. The successful candidate will be well-versed in implementing and optimising a DevOps culture and supporting teams to work in this way. You’ll have experience of introducing end-to-end automated testing, deployment pipelines, and introducing performance metrics like DORA, and then acting on the findings to drive efficiency and excellence. You will also demonstrate AI literacy and an understanding of emerging technologies, enabling them to guide innovation and resilience across the platform. Crucially you must have a proven track record of leading large-scale platform operations and, ideally, infrastructure products, ensuring stability, scalability and strategic alignment with organisational goals.

Main responsibilities
You will:

• Lead the transformation of the DBT platform ensuring long-term resilience and scalability
• Deliver a future-state platform while maintaining stability and continuity of existing services

• Develop and own a compelling product vision and roadmap, balancing user needs, technical capabilities and business value

• Champion agile delivery and DevOps culture across multiple teams, embedding modern engineering practices

• Represent the platform at senior boards, providing clear, strategic updates and influencing decision-making

• Lead, coach and develop a team of experienced product managers, fostering a culture of high performance and continuous improvement

It is essential that you have:

• • Proven experience leading platform and/or infrastructure products at scale
  • Strong technical literacy, including experience with cloud-native architectures, DevOps practices, and large-scale web operations, e.g. Software or Platform as a Service (SaaS and PaaS)
  • Experience working with a diverse group of stakeholders – including at senior levels – and engaging directly with users, with the proven ability to identify a common set of needs and priorities across stakeholder and user groups
  • Experienced in agile methodology and applying an agile mindset to all aspects of your work. You can work in a fast-paced, evolving environment and use iterative methods and flexible approaches to enable rapid delivery
  • Experience of developing and selling a product strategy to secure funding and support for your products, including drafting and presenting business cases, articulating costs and benefits, and translating technical concepts for non-technical audiences  

It is desirable that you have:

• Experience managing high-volume digital services and ensuring operational excellence
• An understanding of AI capabilities, limitations, and evaluation metrics to work effectively with engineers

How to apply

As part of the application process you will be asked to upload a 2-page CV and a maximum 750-word personal statement which outline how you meet the essential criteria listed above. Inspire People will assess your application against the essential criteria listed above to compile a longlist of applications, which will then be sifted by DBT hiring managers. If you are successful, you will be invited to interview.    

It is likely that the sift will take place 1-2 weeks after the closing date and interviews 3-5 weeks after the closing date, though this is subject to change.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be a useful tool to support your application, but all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate, and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism is identified (such as presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use. 

How we interview
At the interview stage for this role, you will be asked to demonstrate relevant Technical Skills and Behaviours from the Success Profiles framework. These are role specific and in line with the DDaT Capability Framework. Artificial intelligence (AI) can be a useful tool to support your application, but all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate, and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism is identified (such as presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Technical Skills

• Creating value for money
• Applying user-centred insights
• Agile and Lean practices
• Managing product outcomes
• Product management
• Strategic ownership

Behaviours

• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Seeing the Big Picture

You will also be asked to deliver a presentation at interview and will be informed on the topic following the sift.

This role requires SC clearance. DBT’s requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years. Failure to meet this requirement will result in your application being rejected and your offer will be withdrawn. 

Benefits
If you join DBT, you will get:

· learning and development tailored to your role
· a flexible, hybrid working environment with options like condensed hours
· a culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
· a Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%
· annual leave starting at 25 days rising to 30 days with service
· three paid volunteering days a year
· an employee benefits programme including cycle to work

More about DBT
This role can only be worked from within the UK, not overseas. If you are based in London, you will receive London weighting. DBT employees work in a hybrid pattern, spending 2-3 days a week (pro rata) in the office on average. Travel to your primary office location will not be paid for by DBT, but costs for travel to an office which is not your main location will be covered.