Product Manager: Group Data Platform

Sanlam Limited; South Africa; On-site; ZAR 800,000 - 1,200,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading financial services company in South Africa is seeking a Product Manager to lead its internal product teams. This role focuses on empowering autonomous teams to leverage data as a competitive advantage, requiring significant experience in product management and data platforms. The successful candidate will establish product visions and manage resources effectively to drive business transformation and user satisfaction.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience leading data platform teams.
• Expertise in cloud technologies and autonomous teams.
• Experience managing budgets and resources.

Responsibilities

• Achieve a free flow of information between internal users and teams.
• Establish a compelling product vision and roadmap.
• Define and measure team success openly.

Skills

Leadership

Communication

Collaboration

Problem-solving

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

National Diploma in Information Technology

Job description

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Sanlam Group Technology is responsible for the provision of a digitally enabled technology service as a group COE, drive business and transformation and provide group-wide digital and data architecture. We operate the various technology platforms and shared services, ensure Cyber and Information Security resilience, and act as technology governance and riskorchestrator for technology across Sanlam.

We’re on a transformation journey to be an innovative company at forefront of the financial services industry's digital transformation. By harnessing advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), we aim to redefine the financial landscape with intelligent, advice-led solutions. To do this, we aim to be a net producer of technology, rather than a net consumer and Product Managers are a critical part of this mission.

This is an internal product leadership role focusing on empowering and accelerating autonomous value creation across the Sanlam Group. With your mastery of Product Management, your expertise in data ingestion, sharing and processing technologies and your experience leading high performing, autonomous technology teams, you’ll ensure business teams across the group make data a source of competitive for them in their markets.

What will make you successful in this role?

What you’ll achieve in the next 12 months

• Achieve a free flow of information between internal users and your team(s): Identify and Conduct internal user research to understand data consumers’ needs and willingness to pay, improving satisfaction and adoption metrics. Success measured by increased user satisfaction scores and adoption rates.
• Establish a compelling product vision: Ensure you and your team are always able to articulate how the world for your users will be different, because of your products. Be clear about how they and Sanlam will benefit as a group, relating it to your user research. Success will be measured through internal surveys and formal approvals of the team’s OKRs by users and senior leadership.
• Establish, gain funding for and deliver an ambitious transformative roadmap: Establish a comprehensive roadmap for your products and gain the buy in of commercial and data science & analytics leaders across the business. Lead budgeting approval discussion to release investment in data to meet business needs, ensuring effective allocation of all approved engineering and financial resources. Success measured by roadmap approval and budget accuracy.
• Give your team the context and clarity they need to deliver the roadmap: Write detailed PRDs that clarify ‘the what’ for development teams effectively, ensuring timely and accurate product & feature delivery based on group needs. Provide any additional context the team needs around user stories, commercial objectives, and so on, so they’re also clear about ‘the why’. Success measured by on-time delivery and alignment with PRD specifications along with team engagement surveys.
• Define and measure team success openly: Define or refine success metrics and Service Level Objectives (SLOs) for your part of the platform to cover adoption, satisfaction, cost as well and reliability Service Level Indicators (SLIs) such as accuracy, recency, latency and so on. Inspire your entire team to take full ownership of their performance as measured through these metrics. Success is measured by continuous improvement in performance of the metrics as well as unanimous approval of their definitions.

Qualification

• Matric
• National Diploma in an Information Technology related discipline or a bachelor's degree in computer science, Statistics, Informatics, Information Systems, or a quantitative field will be recommended.

Experience

• 7+ years' experience in leading data platform teams with at least 2 in a modern context with cloud technologies and autonomous high performing team organisational patterns
• Experience owning and managing a budget, including resource planning from storage and compute costs to cost of team development and retention
• A track record of high impact and investing in your own development

Skills & Thinking Preference

• Excellent leadership and communication skills
• Ability to collaborate effectively with various stakeholders across the organization
• You look for ways to do, instead of reasons not to. You are high agency, high ownership in everything you do. You know we own our future, only we can make it happen. If you find something that keeps us from our mission, you own it or work collaboratively with others until you find the right owner of it.
• Where some see impossible, you see a way: You have the strong conviction in our ability to innovate and bring financial services, and financial confidence to everyone across the continent. You turn obstacles into opportunity, chance into change.
• You move fast and fix things. You publish early and often, when you fail you learn and go again. You know that speed gives you the licence to fail, because you’re moving fast enough to correct course.
• You love creating more with less. Knowing that the biggest impact is born of the smallest acts, scale is built into your thinking from day 1. This is not about meeting the needs of thousands; it’s about exceeding the needs of millions. And working through small and mighty teams is way we’ll do it.
• You seek out and value different perspectives. Believing that when we change how we look at things, how things look for us also changes. Making tomorrow not just different, but better.

Knowledge and Skills

Recommendations to various stakeholders

Responsible for leading, partnering, transforming and delivering digital workplace services.

Drives the effective management of the team financials (where applicable) to ensure efficient employee experience costs against operational budgets as well as value for money services.

Provides operations management and manages service availability of the various technologies that enable the digital workspace.

Project Management

Personal Attributes

Balances stakeholders - Contributing through others

Tech savvy - Contributing through others

Business insight - Contributing through others

Plans and aligns - Contributing through others

Build a successful career with us

We’re all about building strong, lasting relationships with our employees. We know that you have hopes for your future – your career, your personal development and of achieving great things. We pride ourselves in helping our employees to realise their worth.Through its five business clusters – Sanlam Fintech, Sanlam Life and Savings, Sanlam Investment Group, Sanlam Allianz, Santam, as well as MiWay and the Group Office – the group provides many opportunities for growth and development.

Core Competencies

Being resilient - Contributing through others

Collaborates - Contributing through others

Cultivates innovation - Contributing through others

Customer focus - Contributing through others

Drives results - Contributing through others

Turnaround time

The shortlisting process will only start once the application due date has been reached. The time taken to complete this process will depend on how far you progress and the availability of managers.

Our commitment to transformation

The Sanlam Group is committed to achieving transformation and embraces diversity. This commitment is what drives us to achieve a diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace as we believe that these are key components to ensuring a thriving and sustainable business in South Africa. The Group's Employment Equity plan and targets will be considered as part of the selection process.