This is an exciting time to join Waltham Forest – London’s first Borough of Culture. We are busy creating a Council for the future and this is your chance to join an ambitious, customer focussed Digital team during a time of change and transformation.  

Waltham Forest is east London’s cultural hotspot and one of the greenest and fastest growing areas in the capital. With fantastic connectivity, huge investment potential and limitless ambition we are fast becoming well known for economic growth and regeneration.  

Over the past few years Waltham Forest has changed drastically as a place. Good schools, great parks, excellent culture facilities, mass regeneration and budding community entrepreneurial ship are making us a place that people want to call home. Our ambition is that everybody in Waltham Forest enjoys a quality life. 

Job Purpose  

At Waltham Forest we are 100% committed to providing our residents and local businesses with seamless, intuitive digital customer experiences. As one of the most creative boroughs in London we are focussed on transforming the way our residents connect with the world around them, and with us.  

So we need to make sure the Waltham Forest digital experience is the very best it can be. And that means supporting services and people in a culture that puts customers first.  

As the Digital Products & Services Manager you will be responsible for the delivery and continuous improvement of Waltham Forest’s websites and digital services, supporting your team to build the right things in the right order by developing and prioritising product roadmaps and backlogs, all the time focussing on building brilliant customer experiences in order to increase digital channel adoption and meet council savings targets.  

You’ll provide leadership and set standards for your team of product experts, working collaboratively with the digital content and development teams, and Waltham Forest services. You will be committed to ensuring that at all times required outcomes (business change, service improvements and council savings) are met to untimely improve the life chances of our residents.  

If you have energy and passion, and are ready to lead a digital product team to achieve our vision of delivering amazing digital services that will help change people’s lives then this job is for you.  

Key knowledge, skills and experience required

• Demonstrable, hands-on digital product management experience, having previously managed the development and optimisation of multiple digital services and/or service-focussed websites end-to-end from concept to launch.
• An innate sense of what makes a successful user experience.
• A strong understanding of the technical architecture of complex web applications.
• The ability to switch between the strategic visioning and the detail, being the authority in all aspects of your product area.
• An excellent understanding of the fundamentals of software development, processes and procedures, incremental delivery and the value of using data and metrics to inform decisions.
• Knowledge and experience of widely used agile techniques such as user stories, TDD, continuous integration and automated testing.
• Exceptional communicator, skilled at producing and presenting concise and informative presentations demonstrating vision, progress, and plan for execution to senior management and executive level.
• Strong influencing, conflict resolution and negotiation skills.
• Experienced people manager. Actively build and maintain morale levels within the team through open communication and activities that foster a sense of team unity and a focus on the achievement of results. Ensure the digital product team is high performing and following agile methodologies and continuously striving to improve digital customer experience.  

Benefits  

Waltham Forest offers something for everyone. As an employer of choice we offer a great benefits package including:

• Competitive salary package 
• Flexible working including working from home
• Attractive pension scheme
• Interest free season ticket and travel card loans
• Childcare vouchers
• Staff development and training
• Discounts at local restaurants and bars
• A staff benefits portal with over 6000 deals on popular retailers and brands

Equal Opportunities

Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives: - Promoting equality of opportunity - Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage - Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels. - Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all. Respecting Diversity is a core Council value. To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy