Technical Product Owner - Hardware Engineering Environments

WeAreTechWomen; Belfast City District; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Performance-related bonus

Half day every Friday

28 days annual leave

Volunteering paid for

Private healthcare

Pension scheme

Life cover

Employee Assistance Program

Discount shopping schemes

Gym membership discounts

Job summary

Thales is seeking a Technical Product Owner – Hardware Engineering Environments to drive secure, modern engineering toolchains for over 500 hardware engineers across UK sites. Based in Crawley, Reading, or other UK sites, you’ll own the backlog, define requirements and align with engineering leadership to deliver robust environments across on‑premises and cloud.

You’ll act as Technical Authority, collaborate with stakeholders, and lead evolution, migration of applications, and retirement of

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Electronic, Electrical or related engineering is beneficial.
• Experience defining, architecting or managing engineering development environments.
• Ability to translate user needs into technical solutions and manage cross-functional delivery.

Responsibilities

• Represent engineering users and champion effective ways of working.
• Own and prioritise the product backlog for the team.
• Define requirements, acceptance criteria and feature priorities.
• Validate and approve completed features.
• Lead the evolution, consolidation and migration of hardware engineering applications.
• Align UK toolsets with Thales roadmaps and deliver modern engineering environments.

Skills

Hardware engineering

Product ownership

Agile methodologies

Backlog management

Stakeholder management

Requirements analysis

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering

Tools

Jira

Confluence

Git

DOORS/Polarion

Windchill/Teamcenter/ENOVIA

Job description

Location: Crawley, United Kingdom

Thales is a global technology leader with more than 83,000 employees on five continents. With over 7,500 people in the UK, operating across defence, space, aerospace, and digital security, we help build a future we can all trust. Thales supports the security and stability of our nation by providing extraordinary technology to our customers, as well as delivering social value to the UK with our products and services.

Thales is transforming how engineering tools and services are delivered to our teams. We are looking for a Technical Product Owner – Hardware Engineering Environments to help build the next generation of secure engineering environments across Thales UK.

You will play a central role in modernising the tools used by more than 500 hardware engineers. Working across secure network environments and cloud-based platforms where appropriate, you will help define, deliver and evolve the engineering applications that support our hardware design and development activities.

This is an opportunity to combine practical hardware engineering experience with product ownership, technical architecture and stakeholder leadership.

Location(s): Crawley or Reading or Cheadle or Bristol or Glasgow or any other Thales site in the UK

The opportunity

As Technical Product Owner, you will work within an agile development team and as part of the wider Technical Leadership team. You will represent the needs of engineering users, maximise the value delivered by the development and deployment team, and ensure that engineering environments remain fit for purpose.

You will act as the key interface between:

• Hardware engineering users.

• The Engineering Applications Leadership Team.

• Product Owners across Engineering and Information Services.

• Technical architects and delivery teams.

• Engineering Heads of Discipline.

• The Thales Global Services Hardware Tribe.

You will also act as the Technical Authority and Architect for your area, with key design decisions agreed through the Engineering Applications Portfolio Design Authority.

What you’ll be doing

• Represent the needs of engineering users and champion effective ways of working.

• Own and prioritise the product backlog for your team.

• Define requirements, acceptance criteria and feature priorities.

• Validate and approve completed features.

• Collect user feedback through reviews and continuous engagement.

• Lead the evolution, consolidation and migration of hardware engineering applications.

• Align UK engineering toolsets with Thales Group workbench roadmaps.

• Define and deliver modern engineering environment solutions across secure networks and cloud platforms where appropriate.

• Drive the retirement of legacy tools and reduction of technical debt.

• Plan the migration, retention or archiving of programme data.

• Make important technical and product decisions for your area.

• Ensure that engineering practices, processes, tooling, infrastructure and internal services work together effectively.

• Collaborate with Product Owners, Technical Leads, Portfolio Managers and Delivery Managers to deliver the wider engineering applications strategy.

What you’ll bring

We are interested in hearing from candidates at different stages of their careers. You may be an experienced Product Owner, Technical Lead, Applications Architect or hardware engineer ready to take the next step.

You should bring:

• Practical experience of working in a hardware engineering environment.

• A strong understanding of hardware engineering processes and best practice.

• Knowledge of one or more of the following disciplines:

  • Mechanical engineering.

  • Electronics.

  • Interconnect and cabling.

  • FPGA engineering.

• Experience defining, architecting, implementing or managing engineering development environments.

• The ability to understand user needs and translate them into effective technical solutions.

• Experience prioritising work, managing backlogs or coordinating delivery across technical teams.

• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.

Useful technical experience

Experience with any of the following tools or equivalent platforms would be advantageous:

• PLM/PDM: Windchill, Teamcenter or ENOVIA.

• MCAD: Creo Parametric, NX, CATIA or SolidWorks.

• ECAD: Cadence Allegro or Altium Designer.

• Interconnect and cabling: Siemens Capital.

• Simulation: Ansys, COMSOL, Abaqus or MATLAB.

• FPGA: AMD Vivado or Intel Quartus.

• Requirements management: Polarion or DOORS.

• Version control: Git.

• Agile and ALM: Jira, Bitbucket or Confluence.

Qualifications

A bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Electronic, Electrical or a related engineering discipline would be beneficial. Relevant professional experience may be considered in place of formal qualifications.

Benefits:

• Performance-related bonus

• Half day every Friday, usually finishing around 13:00

• 28 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) with opportunity to buy up to 40 hours/year (pro rata)

• 24 hours volunteering paid for

• Private healthcare

• Pension scheme

• Life cover

• 24/7 Employee Assistance Program and access to mental wellbeing app

• Employee discount shopping schemes on major brands and retailers

• Gym membership discounts

Security Clearance Requirement

Due to the nature of the work that we do at Thales, many of our roles are subject to security restrictions. This role requires you to be a UK National and achieve Security Clearance (SC) without any caveats. It would be advantageous if currently held, however, if not currently held, it is a requirement that the successful applicant undergo, achieve, and maintain SC Clearance prior to commencing employment. If approved by the MOD, a dual national from a non-ITAR country may be considered.

To be eligible for full SC, you generally need to have resided in the UK for the last 5 years. In some circumstances, a minimum of 3 years’ residence in the UK over the last 5 years may be accepted, with additional overseas checks.

We are committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued for who they are and the unique strengths they bring. Discover more about our programmes, employee networks, wellbeing policies, and inclusive features here.