Product Owner (SalesAPI)

Alliance Automotive Group UK & Ireland are scaling our Sales API, a headless interface that allows customers and partner platforms to integrate directly with our catalogue and order management systems. To support our growth ambition, we are recruiting a Digital Product Owner to be responsible for market expansion, competitive enhancement and continuous improvement of our Sales API.

The Sales API is an established REST interface that enables customers and third-party systems to:

• Access our product catalogue programmatically

• Place and manage orders

• Check stock and pricing in real-time

• Integrate with garage management systems and other partner platforms

• Build custom interfaces to our systems

You'll take strategic ownership of the Sales API, strengthening our market position, driving adoption with new customers and partners, and acting as technical consultant to integrators. This means defining the roadmap, prioritising features based on commercial value, and working directly with Key Account customers to enable successful integrations.

This role represents true product ownership with meaningful technical depth. The successful candidate will need a strong understanding of API architecture, design principles, and underlying system process flows, combined with a solid grasp of solution implementation and associated business processes.

You must be comfortable engaging in detailed technical discussions with developers and integration partners, confidently translating requirements into viable solution options. The role requires close collaboration with engineering teams to deliver enhancements, partnership with Commercial teams to support business tenders, and direct engagement with customers to guide and support successful implementation.

Reporting to the B2B Digital Portfolio Manager, this role combines strategic product thinking, technical consulting, and commercial impact in a market-leading automotive organisation. The Sales API is a crucial product that enables customers and partners to integrate directly with our systems. Done well, it drives adoption, reduces manual process overhead, and creates competitive advantage.

Product Ownership & Strategy

• Own the Sales API roadmap, prioritising features based on competitive positioning, commercial value, customer demand, and engineering capacity

• Make informed trade‑off decisions balancing customer requests, competitive differentiation, and technical constraints

• Monitor the competitive landscape and define enhancements that strengthen market position

• Drive API adoption and growth, onboarding new customers and third‑party integrators at scale

• Define success metrics and track API performance, adoption, and commercial impact

• Partner with commercial teams to understand customer needs and translate them into product priorities

• Communicate roadmap updates, releases, and progress to internal and external stakeholders

Technical Consulting & Customer Engagement

• Act as a technical consultant to customers and third‑party partners integrating with the API

• Work directly with Key Account customers to understand integration requirements and guide successful implementation

• Provide expert guidance on API architecture, endpoints, authentication mechanisms, request/response structures, error handling, and best practices

• Support pre‑sales conversations where API capability is critical to the commercial proposition

• Troubleshoot integration issues and collaborate with engineering to resolve technical blockers

• Support integration testing and User Acceptance Testing (UAT), including defect identification and validation

Product Delivery, Quality & Governance

• Manage the product backlog and set sprint priorities aligned to strategic objectives

• Write detailed user stories and acceptance criteria covering API behaviour, endpoint specifications, data validation rules, and error scenarios

• Define API requirements including endpoints, payload structures (JSON/XML), authentication, and business rules

• Work closely with engineering to translate business and customer requirements into technical solutions

• Participate in Agile ceremonies (stand‑ups, sprint reviews, retrospectives)

• Define and execute test scenarios to validate API functionality, data accuracy, and business logic

• Review and validate API payloads to ensure compliance with documented requirements

• Use SQL to query and validate relational data, confirming correct processing of orders, pricing, inventory, and customer information

• Perform data reconciliation to ensure consistency across integrated systems

• Ensure API documentation (e.g., Swagger/OpenAPI) is accurate, clear, and useful for integrators

Essential Requirements

• Proven experience owning or managing API products or technical integrations in a commercial environment

• Strong technical understanding of RESTful APIs, authentication, data structures (JSON/XML), and integration patterns

• Working knowledge of SQL and relational databases - you can query data to validate outcomes and troubleshoot issues

• Ability to act as technical consultant - credible in conversations with developers, partners, and technical customers

• Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments with engineering teams

• Track record translating business and customer needs into detailed technical requirements

• Strong stakeholder management skills across commercial, technical, and customer-facing contexts

• Commercial awareness - you understand how APIs drive business value and adoption

• Familiarity with API documentation tools (Swagger/OpenAPI) and API testing tools (Postman, etc.)

Highly Desirable Qualities

• Experience with e-commerce platforms, order management systems, or catalogue APIs

• Experience supporting third-party integrations or partner onboarding at scale

• Understanding of competitive API offerings in B2B or automotive sectors

• Exposure to data validation, reconciliation, or business intelligence

• Experience working with Key Account customers or enterprise integrations

Personal Attributes

• Technically credible but commercially minded - you balance technical quality with business outcomes

• Comfortable working directly with customers and partners in a consulting capacity

• Analytical and detail-oriented - you care about data accuracy and technical correctness

• Collaborative across commercial and technical teams

• Problem-solver with a bias toward practical solutions

• Continuous improvement mindset – establishing “why” not just “how”