Data Product Manager

Pick n Pay Retailers; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Pick n Pay Retailers is seeking a Data Product Manager to own, shape, and deliver data products that create measurable business value for the retail organisation. You will bridge business stakeholders with data, analytics and data science teams, translating priorities into well-defined solutions while ensuring quality, governance and fast delivery.

Applicants should have a Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field and 5+ years in data/BI environments, with Agile experience preferred.

Qualifications

• Translate business needs into data or analytical outputs.
• Experience translating priorities across multiple domains.
• Proven track record delivering cross-functional data initiatives.
• Retail industry experience is advantageous.

Responsibilities

• Engage with business stakeholders to surface data needs and define solutions.
• Own the vision, roadmap, and backlog for data products.
• Manage stakeholder relationships and communicate progress across levels.
• Coordinate multi-disciplinary data delivery and manage risks and dependencies.
• Ensure data governance, quality, and security aligned with standards.
• Track adoption and drive continuous improvement post-delivery.

Skills

Data product management

Stakeholder engagement

Delivery & project management

Governance & quality

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems, Business, Analytics, Commerce, or related field (or equivalent practical experience).

Job description

It's fun to work in a company where people truly BELIEVE in what they're doing! The Data Product Manager is responsible for owning, shaping, and delivering data products that create measurable business value for the retail organisation. This role serves as the primary bridge between business stakeholders and data, analytics, and data science teams – translating commercial priorities, operational challenges, and strategic questions into well-defined data and analytical solutions. The Data Product Manager ensures that data initiatives are grounded in genuine business need, clearly scoped, and delivered in a way that drives adoption and tangible outcomes, while maintaining fast delivery, high standards of data quality, usability, and governance.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems, Business, Analytics, Commerce, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).
• Project Management certification or equivalent (Agile certification preferred).
• Minimum Experience 5+ years’ experience in a data, analytics, business intelligence, or technology environment.
• Proven track record in a role that required translating business needs into data or analytical outputs – e.g. Business Analyst, Data Product Owner, Analytics Lead, or similar.
• Experience working directly with senior business stakeholders and managing competing priorities across multiple domains.
• Demonstrated experience delivering complex, cross-functional initiatives in a large organisation.
• Retail industry experience strongly advantageous.

Technical & Tooling Exposure (Advantageous)

• Familiarity with data warehousing, BI, and analytics platform concepts.
• Exposure to data science and advanced analytics solution types (e.g. segmentation, forecasting, recommendation).
• Exposure to cloud data platforms and modern analytics stacks.
• Understanding of data governance, privacy, and security principles.
• Familiarity with Agile delivery tools and ways of working.

Competencies

• Data Product Management: Ability to define product vision, prioritise roadmaps and backlogs, and ensure data products deliver measurable business value.
• Business & Data Acumen: Strong understanding of business processes and the ability to translate complex business challenges into practical data and analytical solutions.
• Stakeholder Engagement & Influence: Builds trusted relationships with business and executive stakeholders, manages competing priorities and influences decisions across multiple domains.
• Requirements Analysis & Translation: Ability to facilitate discovery, clarify ambiguous requirements and translate business needs into clear briefs for data, analytics and technology teams.
• Strategic & Commercial Thinking: Connects data initiatives to strategic objectives, commercial priorities and measurable business outcomes.
• Delivery & Project Management: Strong ability to coordinate complex, cross-functional initiatives, manage scope, timelines, dependencies and risks, and drive delivery to completion.
• Prioritisation & Decision-Making: Makes pragmatic, value-driven decisions when balancing business demand, capacity, dependencies, risk and competing priorities.
• Data Governance & Quality: Understands and promotes data governance, privacy, security, data quality and consistent data definitions.
• Communication & Facilitation: Communicates complex concepts clearly to technical and non-technical audiences and facilitates productive decision-making and discovery sessions.
• Value Realisation & Continuous Improvement: Measures adoption, usage and business impact and uses stakeholder feedback and data to continuously improve data products and outcomes.
• Collaboration & Leadership: Works effectively across data engineering, analytics, data science, architecture and business teams, creating alignment around shared outcomes.
• Data Literacy & Digital Fluency: Understands modern data, BI, analytics and data science concepts sufficiently to shape solutions and engage credibly with technical specialists.

Key Responsibilities

1. Business Engagement & Requirements Translation Act as the primary point of engagement for business stakeholders across retail domains including Commercial, Store Ops, Supply Chain, Finance, Marketing, Smart Shopper, Clothing, Omnichannel and others. Proactively engage with business leaders and domain experts to surface data needs, untangle complex problems, and identify opportunities for analytical value. Facilitate structured discovery sessions and working sessions to define business questions, success criteria, and the shape of required solutions. Translate ambiguous business challenges into clear, well-defined briefs for data engineering, reporting, analytics, and data science teams – spanning dashboards, analytical models, data products, and data science outputs. Serve as the voice of the business within the data team, and the voice of data capability back to the business.
2. Data Product Ownership Own the vision, roadmap, and prioritised backlog for assigned data products. Facilitate prioritisation and capacity planning with Senior Managers and Exec in Data division. Act as the single point of accountability for the value delivered by each data product. Ensure data products are fit for purpose, adopted by end users, and deliver measurable business outcomes. Continuously refine priorities based on business value, dependencies, and team capacity. Define and monitor success measures, KPIs, and adoption metrics for each product.
3. Stakeholder Management & Communication Manage stakeholder relationships across operational and executive levels, balancing competing priorities across multiple domains. Maintain clear, proactive communication on progress, risks, timelines, and trade-offs. Build trusted relationships that enable honest conversations about what data can and cannot deliver. Champion data literacy and the value of evidence-based decision-making across business teams.
4. Delivery Coordination Plan and manage delivery across multiple data initiatives, including scope, timelines, risks, and dependencies. Coordinate work across data engineers, analysts, data scientists, and external partners where applicable. Track delivery progress and ensure milestones and deadlines are met. Proactively identify and manage risks, issues, and scope changes. Apply pragmatic delivery processes appropriate to the initiative and business area, whether Agile or other project delivery approaches.
5. Data Governance & Quality Ensure data products comply with data governance, privacy, and security standards. Collaborate with data governance and architecture teams to align solutions with enterprise standards. Define and monitor data quality metrics relevant to each product. Champion consistent metric definitions, data definitions, and documentation.
6. Value Realisation & Continuous Improvement Track adoption, usage, and business impact post-delivery. Drive continuous improvement based on user feedback, stakeholder input, and performance data. Identify opportunities to enhance or extend existing data products over time.

Closing Date: 20 October 2026

If you like wild growth and working with happy, enthusiastic over-achievers, you'll enjoy your career with us! Discover who we are At Pick n Pay, we are more than just a retailer; we are an organisation of dedicated people committed to creating an exceptional shopping experience for our customers and an enriching, vibrant work environment for our employees.

Founded in 1967, Pick n Pay is one of the largest retail chains in South Africa, serving millions of customers across the African continent.

Our reputation is built upon our commitment to offering customers the best in quality, and value.

Our Mission We serve with our hearts, we create a great place to be and With our minds, we create an excellent place to shop

Our Values

• Passion for our Customers: We are passionate about our customers and will fight for their rights. Our customers are our priority, and their satisfaction is our success.
• Respect and Care: We care for and respect each other. We value our team's diversity and treat each other with kindness and understanding.
• Personal Growth and Opportunity: We foster personal growth and opportunities. We believe in empowering our employees, providing opportunities for learning and advancement.
• Leadership and Innovation: We nurture leadership and vision, and reward innovation. We encourage our employees to be leaders in their roles and think outside the box.
• Honesty and Integrity: We live by honesty and integrity. We operate with transparency and trustworthiness in all our interactions.
• Community Support: We support and participate in our communities. We believe in making a positive impact and giving back to our communities.
• Individual Responsibility: We take individual responsibility. We are responsible for our actions and decisions.
• Accountability: We are all accountable. We hold ourselves responsible for delivering on our commitments to our customers, each other, and our business.

Why Pick n Pay? At Pick n Pay, our strength lies in our people. We strive to be the employer of choice, attracting and retaining the best talent in the industry. We create a work environment that fosters growth, celebrates achievements, and values individual contributions. Here, your work will be meaningful, recognized, and rewarded. Experience the joy of being part of Pick n Pay. Let's shape the future of retail in Africa together.

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