Product Lead (Application Packaging Tools)

Location: National

Closing Date: 26th October

Interviews: w/c 13th November

Grade: G7

(MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)

Salary: London: £58847 - £66670 (which may include an allowance of up to £1578) 

National: £54358 - £61585

Working pattern: Full time, Part time, Flexible working

Contract Type: Perm

Vacancy number: 80294

*We are currently offering hybrid working which includes 2 days per week in your local office. Office locations can be found HERE

The Role

We’re recruiting for Product Leads here at Justice Digital, to be part of our warm and collaborative End User Compute Services (EUCS) team.

The EUCS team is part of Technology Services in Justice Digital, a modern and diverse workplace that promotes a healthy work-life balance and flexible working options.  They design, deliver and support the core infrastructure and systems that enable End User Compute Services and line of business applications for over 100,000 Ministry of Justice users across over 800 locations. 

Product Leads champion the delivery and continuous improvement of products and define, own and solve problems. They use their technical understanding, as well as knowledge of user needs and business goals to frame problems and set priorities. They are responsible for developing the overall vision for the product and engage their teams and stakeholders in the development of that vision over time and manage a product through its life cycle.  They may line manage other staff and support their professional development as well as be involved in recruitment. 

This can be an ‘entry level’ role for new product leads who have been working in other digital roles or civil servants with sufficient experience across other competencies. 

These are exciting times at Justice Digital. We have a clear vision - to develop a digitally enabled justice system that works simply for its users - and we’re looking for enthusiastic, talented people to help us achieve it.

We’re making things better by building adaptable, effective services and making systems that are simple to use for staff and citizens. It can be challenging but it’s also important and rewarding.

As well as doing interesting work, we’re creating an environment that’s great to work in. We provide the opportunity to work with the latest technologies and offer brilliant training opportunities alongside support from expert colleagues. On top of that, you’ll find flexible working, an inclusive culture, and a place where your opinion is valued.

Find out more about the work digital Justice get involved in, see the online blog, https://mojdigital.blog.gov.uk/

To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital please take a look at our blog and our Digital and Technology strategy 2025

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead and develop a multi-disciplined team, instilling best practice, setting performance targets and ensuring KPIs are consistently achieved.
• Manage the development and delivery of the product strategy and roadmap, acting as SME with a deep technical understanding.  
• Prioritise future requirements to create modern and efficient, enterprise-level EUC solutions and services that deliver value for money and enable the Ministry of Justice to meet its operational objectives across the UK.
• Delivering high quality results and decisions, within tight timescales whilst working under pressure and dealing with ambiguity. 
• Develop and deliver continuous service improvements and work as part of a multi-functional team to create, refine and prioritise a product backlog of changes and enhancements. 
• Discuss requirements with technical and non-technical audiences 
• Own, maintain and publish all product documentation to a good quality and standard, including business requirements and user stories. 
• Building and managing effective relationships with stakeholders and third party suppliers and sharing specialist knowledge to support the adoption of the service. 
• Review operational ways of working and keep up-to-date progress records on activities. 
• Working with internal teams and suppliers to identify resolutions to incidents and problem tickets and utilise this data to improve the product.
• Demonstrate strong understanding of the most modern standards and practices, sharing with the wider team and Justice Digital community.
• Work collaboratively with other areas of EUCS and Justice Digital.

The Product Lead will work collaboratively with:

• All Service Owners
• Technical Architecture, Engineering and Service Operations teams
• 3^rd party Service Managers, Project and Technical leads
• Senior Operations Managers within the EUC team
• Key MOJ stakeholders 

If this feels like an exciting challenge, something you are enthusiastic about, and want to join our team please read on and apply!

Person Specification

Essential

• Proven experience in a similar role, working with Application Packaging Tools. 
• Able to act as the subject matter expert for their own area of technical specialism; Application Packaging Tools and be fully conversant with other complementary technologies and related products.
• Excellent collaboration and partnership skills, with a proven ability to work as part of a wider technical leadership team. Skilled in leading and managing multi-disciplined teams, championing continuous learning and development.
• Able to follow agile working principles, identifying and comparing the best processes or delivery methods to use, including measuring and evaluating outcomes. You can help the team to decide the best approach. You can help teams to manage and visualise outcomes, prioritise work and adhere to agreed minimum viable product (MVP), priorities and scope.
• Able to identify, communicate and work within constraints. You can challenge the validity of constraints and ensure standards are being met.
• Able to apply tools, terms and concepts in a variety of ways. You can be flexible, consider new ways of working and adapt to change.  
• Strong troubleshooting experience; Able to explain the difference between user needs and the desires of the user. You can champion user research to focus on all users. You can prioritise and define approaches to understand the user story, guiding others in doing so. You can offer recommendations on the best tools and methods to use.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills at all levels; Able to effectively get buy-in from the organisation to develop a strategy with scant information and explain it in abstract terms.

Willingness to be assessed against  the requirements for SC clearance is required for this role.

We welcome the unique contribution diverse applicants bring and do not discriminate on the basis of culture, ethnicity, race, nationality or national origin, age, sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability status, sexual orientation, educational or social background or any other factor. 

Our values are Purpose, Humanity, Openness and Togetherness. Find out more here about how we celebrate diversity and an inclusive culture in our workplace.

Benefits

• 37 hours per week and flexible working options including working from home, working part-time, job sharing, or working compressed hours.
• We are committed to nurturing our staff and provide lots of training and development opportunities with learning platforms such as: Linux Academy, O’Reilly, Pluralsight, Microsoft Learning, Civil Service Learning, GDS Academy, etc.
• 10% dedicated time to learning and development with a budget of £1000 a year per person
• Generous civil service pension based on defined benefit scheme, with employer contributions of 26-30% depending on salary.
• 25 days leave (plus bank holidays) and 1 privilege day usually taken around the Kings’ birthday. 5 additional days of leave once you have reached 5 years of service.
• Compassionate maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies, with up to 26 weeks leave at full pay, 13 weeks with partial pay, and 13 weeks further leave. And maternity support/paternity leave at full pay for 2 weeks, too!
• Wellbeing support including access to the Calm app. 
• Nurturing professional and interpersonal networks including those for Careers & Childcare, Gender Equality, PROUD and SPIRIT
• Bike loans up to £2500 and secure bike parking (subject to availability and location)
• Season ticket loans, childcare vouchers and eye-care vouchers.
• 5 days volunteering paid leave.
• Free membership to BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT.
• Some offices may have a subsidised onsite Gym.

How to Apply

Candidates must submit a CV and Supporting Statement which describes how you meet the requirements set out in the Person Specification above.

In Justice Digital, we recruit using a combination of the Digital, Data and Technology Capability and Success Profiles Frameworks. We will assess your Experience, Technical Skills and the following Behaviours during the assessment process:

• Leadership
• Communicating and influencing
• Working together
• Changing and improving
• Managing a Quality Service

Your application will be reviewed against the Person Specification above by a diverse panel. 

Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to a 1-hour panel interview held via video conference.

Should we receive a high volume of applications, a pre-sift based on the technical aspects of the role will be conducted prior to the sift.

Should you be unsuccessful in the role that you have applied for, but demonstrated the capability for a role at a lower level, we reserve the right to discuss this opportunity with you and potentially offer you the position without the need for a further application.

A reserve list may be held for a period of up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made.

Terms & Conditions

Please review our Terms & Conditions which set out the way we recruit and provide further information related to the role and salary arrangements.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact recruitment@digital.justice.gov.uk