Skip to main contentProduct Manager
HM Revenue and Customs
Apply before 11:55 pm on Thursday 28th September 2023
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Information Technology
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About the job
Job summary
Do you thrive in a collaborate environment and are great at building and maintaining positive relationships?
At HMRC, we are already one of the most digitally advanced tax authorities in the world and have one of the largest IT infrastructures and data sources in the UK. With 50 million customers to serve, over 60 thousand colleagues to support, and £600 billion to collect to fund UK Plc, our IT operation is huge! For those who are up to the challenge, we offer unique and unparalleled opportunities to work with some of the newest technologies and make a real, lasting difference.
HMRC is made up of Customer Groups which are working independently towards one common goal. Our role sits within HMRC’s Chief Digital & Information Office (CDIO) Group that deliver in-house solutions for a broad range of technical and operational issues. Our digital delivery centres are hi-tech, state-of-the-art facilities that allow our teams to maximise their capabilities.
See what it’s like to work at HMRC: find out more about us or ask our colleagues a question. Questions relating to an individual application must be emailed as detailed later in this advert.
Job description
About the role
HMRC’s Product Managers take responsibility for the quality of their products. They use their understanding of business goals and user needs alongside highly effective communication skills to frame problems and set priorities for delivery teams.
This role sits within the Product & User Centred Design team who provide consultancy services for business areas and major programmes across HMRC, ensuring that we design and deliver the right things for our users. We do this with a blend of user researchers, service designers, and specialist analysts working under the direction of an experienced product manager.
These consultancy services include:
- Policy lab – Bringing user-centred design principles to policy making.
- User-centred design impacting – Exploring the impact of change ideas and policy proposals.
- Futures state visioning – Strategic design on behalf of future users.
- Design hubs – Translating a vision into a service design.
- Health checks – Understanding what is and is not working in a delivery programme and recommending course corrections.
- Mindsets – Understanding attitudes and behavioural drivers of a user group.
- Systemic design – Surfacing root causes of events and opportunities to solve problems.
- Experimentation – Measuring the impact of content and design decisions on service usage.
Product managers in this team have an expert level knowledge of the techniques and skills required to understand business and user needs, define the value, and deliver the quality of a product.
Product managers at HMRC follow the government Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) capability framework and career paths.
Key responsibilities
As a Product Manager in Product & User Centred Design you will:
- Define the scope of the service, and adapt this as new information is learnt (e.g. as business objectives evolve or user research offers new insights).
- Engage stakeholders to get buy in for the product vision and roadmap.
- Work with a multidisciplinary product delivery team (civil servants or suppliers) with skills such as user research, service design, or business analysis to shape the product and deliver it.
- Work with team members, such as performance analyst and user researchers, to gather user insights and feedback so that products can be iterated and improved.
- Own and maintain a backlog and prioritise the order in which they will be delivered. These should be in line with the goals of the product set by the organisation.
- Work with the Leads in your area to understand different options for how a product or digital service might be developed, and the high level financial case for the options.
- Work with designers and researchers in your area to ensure the products and services are suitably adapted to meet accessibility standards.
- Work with user researchers to shape research activities to test the concepts behind new products, features, or prototypes, and/or test their usability.
- Participate in, and contribute to the Product management community of practice, whether through taking part in community initiatives, running sessions or talks, or other activities which support other product managers.
Person specification
We’re looking for people with strong interpersonal skills who enjoy working in a user-focused, agile environment. The ideal candidate will care about users, technology and be passionate about product success.
It’s essential that you have:
- Experience of building and maintaining positive relationships with stakeholders, including negotiating with stakeholders on difficult issues.
- Experience of understanding problems within a service, product or process, and finding a positive solution to resolve the issue.
- Experience of being able to prioritise work based on what is valuable to do first, and getting buy in from stakeholders for any associated project plans/ rollout plans/ roadmaps.
- Experience of leading or supporting a project to deliver its stated outcomes.
- Ability to collaborate with other professions with specialist skills to solve a problem.
Experience
We will assess your experience, career history and achievements that are relevant to this role. We are looking for evidence of how you have performed rather than time served and a shortlist of responsibilities. Experience can be demonstrated through professional, voluntary or hobby activities, but it should be clarified how it is transferable to this role.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Leadership
- Communicating and Influencing
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Product Ownership
- User Focus
Benefits
- Learning and development tailored to your role
- An environment with flexible working options
- A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
- A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%
Find more about HMRC benefits in 'Your little extras and big benefits handbook' for further information or visit Thinking of joining the Civil Service.
Things you need to know
Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.
As part of the application process you’ll need to provide:
Your CV including employment history.
Your Personal Statement (maximum 750 words) giving examples of when you met the core technical skills for this role, referring to the essential criteria above.
Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.
Applicants will be sifted on CVs and Personal Statements submitted against the specification above, in particular the essential criteria. Within the sift process, applications are anonymised. Please ensure that your Personal Statement does not have any personal information that would undermine anonymity (this includes link URLs that have an identifiable person’s name).
Following the closing date an initial sift based on your CV and Personal Statement will be conducted.
If you are successfully at this stage you will be invited to an interview. The interview will be conducted by staff from HMRC.
During the interview we will ask questions that let you demonstrate your experience and technical skills relevant to the role.
Interviews will focus on the candidates’ application, their skills, behaviours, knowledge, experience and the essential criteria required.
We reserve the right to raise the score required at any stage of the process in order to manage numbers. Interview dates to be confirmed.
Eligibility
To check that you are eligible to apply, review this eligibility information
Important information for existing HMRC contractual homeworkers:
Please note that this role is unsuitable for contractual homeworkers due to the nature and/or requirements of the role.
Reasonable Adjustments
We want to make sure no one is put at a disadvantage during our recruitment process because of a disability, condition, or impairment. To assist you with this, we will reduce or remove any barriers where possible and provide additional support where appropriate.
If you need a reasonable adjustment or a change to be made so that you can make your application, review this information on reasonable adjustments, and contact hmrcrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible.
Equality and Diversity
We’re committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues here at HMRC. We want everyone to feel valued, supported and comfortable being their true self at work.
We’re proud to be a diverse and inclusive employer, supporting social mobility by giving opportunities to people from all walks of life. We want to maximise the potential of everyone who chooses to work for us and offer a range of flexible working patterns and support. Our aim is to make a fulfilling career at HMRC accessible to you.
For more information on how we make this happen, review this information on our culture and values.
Applications received from candidates with a criminal record are considered fairly in accordance with the DBS Code of Practice and the Recruitment of ex-offenders Policy.
We welcome applications from those who need to work a more flexible arrangement and will agree to requests where possible after considering operational and customer service needs. We can’t guarantee that we can meet all requests to work flexibly, as agreement will be subject to business ability to accommodate, and any request to work a more flexible arrangement should be made prior to your acceptance of the provisional offer.
Customer facing roles in HMRC require the ability to converse at ease with members of the public and provide advice in accurate spoken English and/or Welsh where required. Where this is an essential requirement, this will be tested as part of the selection process.
The Civil Service runs a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.
Locations
HMRC has a presence in every region of the UK. For more information on where you might be working, review this information on our locations.
Security Update
For more information on the level of security checks we will carry out, review this information on security checks
Further Information
The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. The evidence you provide in your application must relate to your own experiences.
Any instances of plagiarism or other forms of cheating will be investigated and, if proven, the relevant application/s will be withdrawn from the process.
Duplicate applications for the same vacancy will also be withdrawn.
Transferring into HMRC from Civil Service If you are currently working for an ‘Other Government Department’ (OGD) and would like to consider the impact on your pay when joining HMRC, please see the attached document "Combined T&C and OGD Pay English”, found at the bottom of this advert. Further information on staff transfers can be found on gov.uk
Problems during the application process
If you experience accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.
If you think you’ve made a mistake on a submitted application (e.g. you’ve ticked the incorrect eligibility box), please contact hmrcrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk at least two working days before the vacancy closes. After this, we won’t be able to reopen your application.
Please use the subject line to insert appropriate wording e.g. Please re-open my application - 310526 & vacancy closing date 28/09/2023.
For reasonable adjustments queries or requests, please see details within reasonable adjustments section above.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
Nationality requirements
Working for the Civil Service
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
Apply and further information
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name : Ryan Little
- Email : ryan.little@hmrc.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : hmrcrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Further information
