Technical Program Manager

Technical Program Manager in Essex, United Kingdom

Ford Credit Europe’s Ford Finance application is currently one of FCE’s unique selling points that allows us to offer even more to our Ford dealerships in the form of an in-dealership financing tool. The FCE Dealer space was created to be a one-stop-shop to service our dealerships around Europe and create the software to support, simplify and modernise their daily business activities. Previously there were several legacy applications that have been completely replaced as part of the Core Modernisation program with Ford Finance, which is now made up of three main back-end applications (Business E-Commerce Eco-System, Alfa Abstraction Layer, Risk Management Services).

Ford Finance has major expansion planned for 2025 onwards to enhance our banking capability with a modern technical solution that can not only handle existing products and services but also provide leading edge digital capability and operational efficiency with the tools to manage the business day-to-day to grow and innovate into the future.

The Technical Program Manager role will have overall responsibility of the lifecycle of the existing team backlog, as well as adapting to changing market needs as the product is rolled out to a wider audience. The role will also have opportunity to drive the establishment & execution of required work to facilitate the Ford Finance expansion and transformation.

Responsibilities:

1. Technical Program Management of the FCE Dealer Team.
2. Coordinate and lead the delivery of application features using industry best-practices and technologies that have been designed and developed by a team of software engineers.
3. Take ownership and responsibility for the Product Team Backlog alignment and delivery commitments while working alongside key individuals: Product Manager, Portfolio/Solution Architects, Digital Platform Engineering, and Business Customers to deliver working, tested software.
4. Own Senior Backlog Management and lead portfolio level best Practices.
5. Own and progress the FCE Dealer landscape and strategy.
6. Ownership of Backlog Readiness and data Accuracy (Rally).
7. Lead by example: Backlog refinement, refactoring, sizing, and prioritisation of the Product Backlog.
8. Lead effective execution of key Product Team Ceremonies: Daily Stand-up, Iteration Planning, Retrospectives, Demos, Portfolio Updates as described by Product Org best practices.
9. Lead Release Planning in alignment with the portfolio roadmap for the FCE Dealer product team.
10. Ensure appropriate controls and technical documentation is created and maintained.
11. Co-ordinate production support incidents, manage prioritisation and regularly update key stakeholders impacted.

Key Qualifications:

1. Experience of leading development teams using Lean, Agile, XP based practices and methodologies.
2. Experience of leading specific business and technical strategies, working with senior Stakeholders.
3. Experience of managing software delivery within a financially regulated environment.
4. 3+ years Software Engineering experience with current industry tooling.
5. Strong command of Product Org Backlog management with associated tooling and best practices (Rally / Jira).
6. Strong leadership skills: Evidence of ability to manage & lead an Engineering Team in a Product Organisation setting.
7. Proven record of working autonomously in areas of high ambiguity, without day to day supervisory support.
8. Strong prioritisation, co-ordination, organisational and communication skills, and a proven ability to balance workload and competing demands to meet deadlines.
9. Effective communication and ability to work in a large diverse team.
10. Minimum 2.2 degree or international equivalent (for current employees, where supported, an exception may be applied).

Desired Qualifications:

1. Software engineering or development experience in a regulated, financial environment.
2. Demonstrated evidence of application of Ford Credit Security & Control practices / Ford ISP standards.
3. Practical understanding / usage of version control systems (Git/GitHub) and CI/CD tools (Cloud Build, Tekton).
4. Understanding of current architecture standards and digital platform services strategy.
5. Experience working with and managing Senior Stakeholder expectations and delivering against a strategic road map within a product organisation.
6. Experience of coaching and mentoring software Engineers in Product Org practices and tools.
7. Experience managing Product Team metrics to improve performance and effectiveness.
8. Experience of Software Engineering Craftsmanship techniques and best practices.
9. Experience of regulatory reporting.
10. Experience of GCP.
11. Experience of supplier management including supplier selection, contract negotiation & strategic management of supplier relationships.

Role Training Available:

Internal and external training along with on-the-job training will be provided on the technologies and coding languages to be utilised where required. The applicant is expected to be prepared to self-learn along with other members of the team to enable the delivery of the backlog requirements.