Product Owner (12 Months Contract)

Job Overview:

The Product Owner, Retail Technology is responsible for owning and delivering value across key retail technology capabilities globally, with a particular focus on store operations, new shop openings, Point of Sale (POS) systems, retail systems architecture, and omnichannel customer journeys.
This role acts as the bridge between retail operations, technology, delivery teams, third-party suppliers, and senior business stakeholders. The successful candidate will translate retail business goals, store colleague needs, customer expectations, and technology requirements into clear product outcomes, prioritised backlogs, user stories, acceptance criteria, and delivery roadmaps.
The role will be based in the United Kingdom and requires a strong understanding of the retail environment, including store operations, POS platforms, payment journeys, inventory touchpoints, customer experience, trading requirements, and the technology needed to successfully open and operate physical retail locations.

Responsibilities
The Product Owner, Retail Technology will own and deliver a defined product or workstream within the retail technology landscape. This may include POS systems, store infrastructure, retail platforms, store opening readiness, systems integration, payments, stock visibility, colleague tools, and customer-facing retail journeys.
The role will ensure that product outcomes align with business strategy, operational readiness, customer needs, store colleague experience, technical feasibility, and measurable business value.

Key Responsibilities
Product Ownership & Strategy

Own the vision, roadmap, and backlog for retail technology products globally; aligned to business and store priorities.
Act as product SME across POS, payments, store systems, integrations, stock, promotions, loyalty, CRM, and order management.
Partner with retail, technology, commercial, property, supply chain, finance, and suppliers to deliver successful outcomes.

New Store Opening and Retail Readiness

Support technology delivery for new shop openings, refits, relocations, and store format changes.
Define readiness requirements for POS, devices, connectivity, payments, access, testing, training, and handover.
Manage risks, dependencies, and lessons learned to improve future store rollouts.

POS Systems and Retail Architecture

Own POS requirements across sales, returns, refunds, exchanges, promotions, payments, loyalty, gift cards, and click and collect.
Work with architects, vendors, and engineering teams on POS architecture, integrations, data flows, and dependencies.
Ensure store technology is scalable, secure, resilient, supportable, and aligned to the wider retail architecture.

Backlog Management and Agile Delivery

Create and prioritise a clear backlog of retail technology requirements.
Translate business, customer, and store colleague needs into user stories and acceptance criteria.
Lead refinement, support Agile ceremonies, and make timely decisions to maintain delivery momentum.

Stakeholder Engagement

Build strong relationships across retail operations, store teams, technology, delivery, architecture, and suppliers.
Communicate priorities, progress, risks, dependencies, and trade-offs clearly.
Facilitate workshops to define requirements, validate solutions, and resolve competing priorities.

Value Delivery and Governance

Define KPIs and use data, colleague feedback, customer insight, and trading performance to guide decisions.
Review and accept completed work against acceptance criteria and business outcomes.
Support testing, UAT, pilots, store readiness, release planning, documentation, and operational handover.
Ensure solutions meet relevant security, payment, data protection, audit, and operational standards.

Skills & Experience
Essential

Proven experience as a Product Owner, Product Manager, Senior Business Analyst, or similar role within a retail environment.
Strong experience working with POS systems, store technology, retail platforms, or retail operations technology.
Practical experience supporting or delivering technology for new store openings, store refits, store rollouts, or retail transformation programmes.
Understanding of retail store processes, including sales, returns, exchanges, payments, promotions, stock movements, colleague operations, reporting, and end-of-day processes.
Experience working with retail systems architecture, integrations, and third-party technology suppliers.
Strong understanding of Agile delivery, product lifecycle management, backlog prioritisation, user stories, and acceptance criteria.
Proven ability to manage competing priorities and make effective trade-off decisions.
Experience working with cross-functional teams, including business stakeholders, technology teams, architects, delivery managers, project managers, QA teams, and vendors.
Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
Excellent communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills.
Data-driven mindset with experience defining KPIs, tracking outcomes, and using insight to inform product decisions.
Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced global retail environment.

Desirable

Experience with store opening playbooks, rollout planning, pilot stores, deployment readiness, or retail implementation frameworks.
Knowledge of payment systems, payment terminals, PCI considerations, and payment gateway integrations.
Experience with omnichannel retail journeys, including click and collect, ship from store, returns, loyalty, promotions, and customer account journeys.
Knowledge of retail architecture patterns, including POS to ERP, POS to inventory, POS to CRM, POS to eCommerce, and POS to reporting integrations.
Experience working with enterprise retail platforms, order management systems, inventory systems, workforce tools, loyalty platforms, or CRM solutions.
Experience in UK retail, multi-site retail, franchise retail, convenience retail, fashion retail, grocery, hospitality retail, or specialist retail environments.