Head of Product, Elections Digital

Job summary

The Elections Directorate is responsible for a challenging and dynamic policy landscape, always in the public eye, covering electoral policy and law. This includes how elections are run, who can participate and how elections and campaigning are regulated. This is an exciting Head of Product role, joining the leadership team of the Elections Digital Division. This is a team of enthusiastic and highly skilled digital specialists, geographically dispersed across the UK. Our multidisciplinary in-house digital team is the driving force behind the development and delivery of excellent elections services for users, as well as the day-to-day operational running of those services. We are looking to build our in-house development capability in the coming years.

The division has a portfolio of 7 products and services, including the flagship Register to vote service. Over recent years, we’ve rapidly expanded our portfolio, and electors can now apply online for postal votes, proxy votes and photo identification. As well as continuing to develop our existing products and services to better meet user needs, the Digital Division has a big part to play in delivering Government Manifesto commitments and other Ministerial priorities. Lowering the voting age to 16 requires changes to all our elector-facing services, making them the first interaction that many young people will have with the gov.uk estate. We are also seeking to improve registration by using data and links between government services to increase the number of people correctly registered to vote.

We are looking for a Head of Product to join the team and be accountable for developing, shaping, prioritising and executing the vision, product strategies and roadmaps of the products with the Digital Electoral Services portfolio. The Head of Product is a leadership role in the digital team in the Elections Directorate. You will have direct responsibility for a team of product specialists, as well as a wider leadership role within the Division and Directorate.

Job description

As the Head of Product, you'll:

• Be a visible leader in the Elections Directorate advocating for the importance of designing user-centred products and continually improving them to meet user needs, and represent your products and team across the wider Directorate and Department
• Own and be responsible for developing and articulating a clear vision, product strategy, achievable goals and measurable objectives for your products
• In partnership with the Head of Delivery, own and maintain a portfolio level roadmap and manage the prioritisation of product development in the portfolio, ensuring a balance of support work so that the products remain reliable, robust and secure, whilst also continuously improving
• Lead teams in assessing new information about the needs of potential users of the solution, and making decisions about which to meet
• Support the product community within the Division, helping members feel involved and supported in their profession, help them to identify improvements in their ways of working and use their insights to influence strategy and policy
• Lead and develop the product team to ensure that we have the right capacity and capability to deliver. The post-holder will be expected to be an excellent people manager who can develop and empower a high performing team
• Play a leadership role in the Elections Digital Team and the wider Elections Directorate, contributing to ongoing work on the overall digital team structure and roles, strategic planning and scenario planning, support models, options exploration, governance and continuous improvement of products, services and practices

Person specification

As a Head of Product, you'll have:

• Strong product management experience with a track-record of shipping and evolving great digital products by working with multiple teams in an agile delivery setting
• Experience of leading the process of designing and improving a portfolio of products throughout their entire life-cycle, including understanding user needs, user story writing, MVP definition, development of measurable objectives and backlog prioritisation
• Experience in growing and mentoring a high-performing product team, identifying talent and potential, and developing and coaching individuals in a team
• Strong interpersonal skills, used to managing senior stakeholders, building effective relationships and working closely with policy stakeholders to product thinking at the very earliest stages of policy and design thinking
• Experience of successfully developing and delivering product and portfolio visions, strategies and roadmaps in complex, large, uncertain, and highly visible problem spaces
• A thorough understanding of a variety of disciplines involved in digital delivery, including engineering, service design, performance analysis and user research developed through working in multi-disciplinary teams
• Experience in leading teams through ambiguity, uncertainty, challenge, or change; setting expectations to meet evolving needs, and excellent people management and team leadership skills
• An understanding of new and emerging digital technologies and the opportunities they provide to improve the delivery of public services in the UK