Product Owner

RM Education; Abingdon; Hybrid; GBP 55,000 - 75,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private medical healthcare

Life assurance

Group Pension Plan

Extra annual leave

Dental plan

Health assessment

Cycle to work scheme

Referral bonus

Job summary

RM Education in the United Kingdom is seeking a Product Owner to lead one or more squads within RM Assessment, guiding backlog and ensuring delivery against business goals.

You will work closely with Engineering Managers to provide support, coaching, and process improvements while aligning with strategic objectives. The role requires collaboration with stakeholders and a focus on product quality and security.

Qualifications

• Experience in product ownership or management and business analysis.
• Understanding of market research, customer needs, and competitive analysis.
• Hands-on experience with Waterfall and Agile/Scrum.
• Experience collaborating with business leaders, development teams, and customers.
• Ability to balance business needs with technical feasibility.
• Familiarity with APIs, cloud solutions, and system architecture.

Responsibilities

• Define and prioritize backlog items based on strategy and objectives.
• Define Acceptance Criteria for backlog items.
• Facilitate planning, review, and retrospective meetings to align with roadmaps.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to refine requirements.
• Oversee development stages and liaise between team and stakeholders.
• Identify and mitigate product risks.
• Champion adoption of new technologies and processes.

Skills

Product ownership

Business analysis

Backlog management

Roadmap management

Stakeholder management

Technical understanding

APIs

Cloud solutions

System architecture

Jira

Azure DevOps

Tools

Jira

Azure DevOps

Job description

Overview

Would you like to help enrich the lives of learners around the world?

At RM, we’ve been pioneers of education technology since 1973. We provide technology and resources to the education sector, supporting over 20 million students and improving educational outcomes worldwide.

What we do helps learners at all stages of their lives, from preschool to higher education and professional qualification; we partner with schools, examination boards, governments, and professional organisations globally to make learning more accessible, more engaging, and more impactful.

RM operates through three divisions: Assessment (digital assessment and marking solutions), Technology (managed services, hardware, and software for schools), and TTS (educational resources).

Within the assessment market we are experts in providing solutions for online exam testing and marking and the management and analysis of educational data. We work with government ministries, exam boards and professional awarding bodies for high stakes assessment such as GCSEs, ALevels, and professional qualifications. Each year, our software is used globally to conduct hundreds of thousands of on-screen tests and to mark millions of paper-based scripts. For over a decade we have been partnering with the world’s leading awarding bodies to deliver intuitive, secure, and reliable e-marking solutions.

Visit our website to find out more: www.rm.com/assessment

Reporting to the Head of Product Management, you willlead one or more squads of developers based in the UK providing leadership to enable us to meet RM Assessment’s business growth objectives.

The squads will be new high performing teams of motivated individuals with a range of specialist skills and domain knowledge. As the Product Owner you will be expected to work closely with the Engineering Managers to ensure the team has the processes, skills, capacity, resources and motivation to deliver superb quality in challenging timescales. You will manage the team day to day, providing support, coaching and guidance to maximise the potential of individuals and as well as working within the wider community of practise to continue to improve your skills and practise.

A BPSS (Baseline Personnel Security Standard) is applicable to this role, therefore appropriate security checks will be carried out as part of the recruitment process prior to any offer being made.

Responsibilities

• Define and prioritize the product backlog items based on the overall strategy and business objectives, ensuring clear communication of requirements to the development team.
• Define Acceptance Criteria for backlog items, ensuring items are delivered to these.
• Facilitate planning, review, and retrospective meetings to ensure alignment with the product roadmap and continuous improvement of processes.
• Collaborate with stakeholders across the organization to gather and refine requirements, ensuring the product meets customer needs and market demands.
• Oversee the development stages, acting as a liaison between the development team and stakeholders, to ensure features are delivered according to specifications.
• Implement risk management strategies to identify potential product issues, mitigate risks, and ensure the product’s success in the market.
• Champion the adoption of new technologies or processes within the product development lifecycle and across the Product Teams to improve efficiency and product outcomes

Experience

1. Product Management or Business Analysis:

• Experience in product ownership or management, business analysis, or a related field.
• Understanding of market research, customer needs, and competitive analysis.

1. Development Methodologies:

• Hands-on experience working in Waterfall and Agile/Scrum environments.

1. Stakeholder Management:

• Experience collaborating with business leaders, development teams, and customers.
• Ability to balance business needs with technical feasibility.

1. Technical Understanding:

• While not necessarily a developer, you should understand technology and software development processes.
• You should have a familiarity with APIs, cloud solutions, and system architecture.

1. Backlog & Roadmap Management:

• Experience defining and prioritizing product backlogs and managing roadmaps.
• Proficiency with tools like Jira and Azure DevOps.

What’s in it for you?

At RM we have My Work Blend @RM which provides office-based colleagues with multi location and hybrid working options. As well as your office base, you can spend a proportion of your time working at other locations that suit your role and your life, including home, other offices, customer sites, distribution centres or on the move. We encourage you to discuss arrangements for this role with your potential line manager during the recruitment process.

As well as a competitive salary and our core benefits package which includes private medical healthcare, life assurance and a Group Personal Pension Plan with higher contribution levels available. There are lots of voluntary benefits too. You could buy additional annual leave, join our dental plan, sign up for a health assessment, or take part in our cycle to work scheme. You could even earn yourself an extra bonus for successfully recommending a friend or family member for a position within RM.

To better reflect the society that we serve, we’re committed to building a diverse workforce and creating an inclusive and welcoming environment for all. To achieve this, we create teams of talented people from different backgrounds and experiences and strive to be a business where our people can bring their whole selves to work, we also want to make the recruitment process as inclusive as possible for everyone. Should you require additional support with your application or through the interview process, please contact us at [e-mail].

Unfortunately, we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role.