Technical Product Manager at Piclo

About Piclo

The climate crisis means that now, more than ever, we need to act. Here at Piclo, we believe we are not powerless against climate change and are focused on enabling the transition to a decarbonised future. Our team is on a mission to make our energy systems smart, flexible and sustainable.

We’re hiring a Technical Product Manager to work alongside our friendly team of software engineers, product managers, designers and more that are at the forefront of transforming the energy sector.  

Who we are looking for 

We’re looking for a Technical Product Manager, whose main responsibility is to ensure that the Cloud Experience team has clarity on their direction and priorities. 

To accomplish this you must understand the business goals and user needs, and transform this information into problems that the team will collaborate to solve. Leveraging your technical proficiency, you’ll drive the development and optimisation of cloud-based services, ensuring they bolster the effectiveness, reliability, and security of our product. This role bridges the gap between business, technology, and user experience, facilitating a seamless integration of our cloud platform, data warehouse, and online services. 

The Cloud Experience mission is to provide data pipelines, insights and cloud engineering, to other teams. The infrastructure and data is managed across AWS, Terraform, and Tableau. Piclo’s expansion into new territories amplifies our need for robust cloud platforms, and analytics that spans geographies.

About you

Our ideal candidate meets many - but not necessarily all - of the below criteria:

3+ years as a Technical Product Manager 

OR 4+ years combined between Product Management / Owner and engineering / DevOps / data analytics

Able to gather suitable understanding to form opinions on technical matters, explain technical concepts at a high level, and participate in technical discussions within Piclo and with 3rd parties

A high-level understanding of some of the following: BI tooling, ETL pipelines, microservice app architecture, modern cloud platforms, serverless hosting, infrastructure as code

Familiarity with Trello, or other similar tools

Experience writing, scoping and tracking tickets as they move through the flow, and reporting against KPIs as they are delivered

An excellent communicator who can build relationships with teammates from different disciplines, and bring clarity to every situation

Fluent in English, even if it’s not your first language

Also desirable:

Knowledge and experience of best practices for agile product management

Previous time as a Scrum Product Owner, Scrum Master, or Agile Coach

Previous experience includes time as a product manager in a B2B Software as a Service (SaaS) marketplace

Experience in scale-up environments

Understanding of the energy industry or other industries that make up national infrastructure

Comfortable working with products that don’t have a UI and may not have direct human users

You are motivated by Piclo’s mission to make our energy system smart, flexible and clean

You are naturally empathic and are always mindful of the humans who use and benefit from your work

About the role

This role sits within the Cloud Experience Team and would be responsible for (but not limited to) the following:

Short term planning and prioritisation

Break down quarterly initiatives into sprint goals

Collaborate with engineers and designers to plan discovery and development activities

Collaborate with the team to break the sprint goal into tickets and scope accordingly

Prioritise and plan the order of sprint goals, and reprioritise/replan as new information is learned. 

Track sprint planning and sprint metrics in airtable and google sheets

Collaborate with the delivery team to release new features

Ensure the quality of the product remains high through each new release

Long term strategy and direction

Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to gather feedback and manage expectations regarding the product

Leverage data and analytics to understand how the product is used, inform decision-making processes, and track the product's performance

Develop a vision and KPIs for their area of the product

Derive initiatives that drive outcomes in line with business goals and user needs

Prioritise and plan ordering for items on the roadmap

Stay informed about the broader market trends, including competitor products, technological advancements, and user behaviour patterns to guide the product's strategic direction

Identify potential risks or issues that could impact the product delivery or achievement of business goals, and develop strategies to mitigate these risks

Technical focus

Understand, at a high level, the technologies in use by the development team, and maintain a high level of technical understanding

Strong empathy for the engineers

Able to ask probing questions on technical matters to clarify their understanding or to challenge the understanding of the team

Able to communicate concepts across technical and non-technical audiences

Additional responsibilities

Liaise with customers, partners, and vendors as required, communicating product changes and updates effectively

Attendance in London office at least one day per fortnight (once per sprint)

What we can offer 

£50-70k, with the ability to participate in the success of the company through its share option scheme

25 days holiday (plus Bank Holidays)

35 hour week - with flexible working hours (within core business hours)

Hybrid working - we aim to have team days in our London office weekly.

Life Assurance, Income Protection and private Healthcare with Vitality (medical history disregarded)

A monthly expense budget for the extra kit or tools you might need to get your job done to the best of your abilities at home 

Annual allowance to spend on professional development

Regular off-sites, where the whole company gets together

A super welcoming, supportive, collaborative and transparent culture where the priority is to help shape your role to find the best balance between what we need as a business and your career progression plans.

Who we are

Piclo’s mission is to decarbonise the grid. We develop software solutions that make our energy networks smarter, flexible and more sustainable. Our flagship product, Piclo Flex is the leading independent marketplace for energy flexibility services, enabling system operators (such as National Grid ESO, UKPN and a growing number internationally) to source energy flexibility from flexible service providers (e.g. electric vehicles) during times of high demand or low supply. As of 2022, Piclo Flex has 55,000 registered flexible assets and  flexibility contracts awarded totalling £57.4m with 16.6 GW of flex capacity registered and 1.1 GW+ of flexible capacity procured.

Piclo currently provides flexibility services in six global markets: UK, Ireland,  Italy, Portugal, Lithuania and in the United States in New York State. Aside from its leading position in the UK, Piclo has a growing presence in Europe, North America and Australia.

We know “flexibility” can be quite complex to understand at first, here’s a short video that explains “what are flexibility services?”

Inclusivity

Our team welcomes everyone to work together on our mission. We are all in this together after all. We don’t believe that anyone should be discriminated against for any reason, be that age, nationality, gender, race, sexual preferences, religious beliefs, political leanings or disabilities. We welcome diversity among our colleagues and see it as important that everyone is supported and comfortable working with us. Piclo is expanding internationally, so English doesn’t have to be your first language, but we would like you to be fluent.

How to apply and interview process

To apply, email jobs@piclo.energy with ‘Technical Product Manager’ in the subject line (or click the Apply button below) and tell us about your skills and experience, and why you think you’d be a good fit for this role. 

Please include either a copy of your CV, the URLs for your personal site or Linkedin profile, as well as URLs to any relevant public repositories that might support your application. Please note that, at this stage, we’re more interested in hearing why you think you’re a good match for us and the role. 

We conduct interviews in three stages

Introductory call: we’ll invite you for a short video call to discuss your experience and what you’re looking for in your next role. 

Challenge: If successful, applicants will be invited to complete a challenge relevant to the skills required in your role

Final interview: if successful, applicants will then be invited to a final, in-depth interview to meet additional members of the team.