Product Manager

Product Manager, Research and Innovation (Research Skills and Research Practice)

Are you an experienced Product Manager who loves turning real user needs into products that make a difference? We have an opportunity in IT Services to join our Research and Innovation product team and be part of the established IT Services Product Community of Practice. You’ll lead our Research Skills and Research Practice domains, shaping the support, training and systems researchers need to work with data and computational techniques.

The role
You will own the product vision and roadmap for the Research Skills and Research Practice domains. These range from safe and accurate interview transcription tools to training that helps researchers embed AI into the research process. You’ll get to know the researchers, research support teams and partners who use these services, map opportunities, and keep a curated backlog of outcomes ready for prioritisation.

Working closely with architects, engineers, service leads and delivery colleagues, you’ll bring together cross-functional discovery and design teams. They will release value early, measure what works and keep improving. You’ll champion user experience, accessibility and inclusion. You’ll also give stakeholders the evidence and advice they need to make confident prioritisation decisions across products.

This role lets you apply your product management skills where the impact is real and visible, helping researchers use data, computation and AI safely and effectively. Through the Community of Practice, you’ll also help shape how product management grows as a profession across the University. You’ll coach and mentor colleagues and connect with product management networks across the sector.

About you
We’re looking for someone with:

• Significant experience of the full agile product lifecycle, ideally within a product-led IT model.
• A track record of developing a strategic product vision and delivering value quickly and iteratively.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to build trusted relationships with diverse stakeholders at every level.
• The confidence to influence, and to positively challenge colleagues and stakeholders, to protect product value.
• A curious, user-centred mindset and a can-do, problem-solving approach.

If your experience doesn’t match every criterion, we’d still love to hear from you. Please refer to the criteria in the person specification in your application statement.

What we offer
The University of Sheffield is a remarkable place to work. Our people are at the heart of everything we do. Their diverse backgrounds, abilities and beliefs make Sheffield a world-class university.

We offer a fantastic range of benefits, including a minimum of 41 days’ annual leave including bank holidays and closure days (with the option to buy more), a generous pension scheme, flexible working opportunities, a commitment to your development and wellbeing, a wide range of retail discounts, and much more.

Find out more at sheffield.ac.uk/jobs/benefits and join us to become part of something special.

We are committed to exploring flexible working opportunities which benefit the individual and University.

For an informal conversation about the role, contact Saul Cozens, Head of Product for Research and Innovation, at s.cozens@sheffield.ac.uk.

We build teams of people from different heritages and lifestyles from across the world, whose talent and contributions complement each other to greatest effect. We believe diversity in all its forms delivers greater impact through research, teaching and student experience.

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