Principal Product Manager - Loss Prevention

Job Summary

As Principal Product Manager for Loss Prevention Science, you will be a thought leader in loss prevention for Tesco, with ownership for the relevant platforms and algorithmic approaches within this domain for all five markets that Tesco operates in. 

Your mission is to balance speed with security to create frictionless experiences for customers. You’ll have every resource at Tesco’s disposal to solve the “unexpected item in the bagging area” problem in our stores, to ensure that customers can purchase with a single click online; and many more!

Our product vision is to provide a single source of decision making for loss prevention within Tesco, across any channel or market. We operate at the point of transaction, so Tesco chooses which transactions to allow, block or intervene in, to grow sales and manage losses.

You will drive the algorithmic vision, product strategy, roadmap and execution, solving customer problems and delivering high value at scale. You will contribute to the wider strategy around profiling and risk management.

You’ll lead science as part of a cross functional product development team,  built up of product managers, API engineers,  ML engineers. Product Management is based in the UK and Engineering is based in the Budapest Hub in Hungary, working as a single Agile product development team within Tesco Technology.

Main Responsibilities

Whilst specific responsibilities will be dependent upon the changing needs of the Tesco business, the following provides an overview of the role’s key responsibilities and measures;

• Drive the global product vision, strategy and execution for Loss Prevention Science at Tesco, working closely with the Head of Product and Head of Software Development
• Be a thought leader in the risk management space and contribute to broader discussions, strategy and vision for real-time intelligence and profiling at Tesco
• Foster innovation and scientific discovery with a view to seeking out new applications for Loss Prevention Science across the wider business
• Work closely with other product managers, product teams and business partners, across multiple business units and domains (channels, markets, clients etc…) to solve customer and business problems, defining and agreeing outcomes and key results
• Work closely with the Data Science team and relevant engineering teams to deliver maximum business value with least effort, always delivering value in slices
• Represent the product organisation in key strategic decisions concerning relevant technology platform and suppliers
• Maintain and establish new relationships with suppliers and business partners relating to Loss Prevention Science
• Use leadership and negotiation skills to define and influence outcomes both within and outside of the organisation in order to achieve the best for Tesco customers, colleagues and partners
• Determine and define the right mix of Outcomes and Key Results to judge the efficacy and drive material improvements in loss prevention capability, whilst collaborating on the right business and customer Key Results that drive value to Tesco’s P&L
• Make build vs buy decisions in collaboration with senior technology counterparts based on what is best for the product strategy
• Inspire, mentor and coach other algorithmic (quantitative) Product Managers and Teams improving this discipline and capability at Tesco

Contribute towards hiring/ building a great pool of Product Managers for other functions

Skills relevant for the job

Deep understanding of:

• The Data Science Lifecycle (Business Understanding, Data Acquisition/Understanding, Modelling, Deployment, Acceptance)
• Machine and Deep Learning approaches and when to apply them
• Real-time risk management approaches and their advantages and disadvantages
• Data analytics
• Customer and Basket profiling
• Rule efficiency
• Cold-start problems
• Processes for productionising decision-making engines at scale
• Test and Learning techniques at scale (A/B Testing, MVT etc…)
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• A methodical/ analytical approach and great problem-solving skills
• Ability to evangelise a product domain to the wider business
• Team player who could work collaboratively with other members of the team
• Ownership, responsiveness and commitment towards assigned work
• Strong decision making and prioritization skills, especially when multiple trade-offs are involved and faster decision are required
• Empathy and good listening skills to understand the needs/pain points of your customers/ stakeholders
• Supplier management and negotiation skills
• Knowledge of Agile methodologies, writing effective user stories/acceptance criterions

Experience relevant for this job

• You have effectively managed a complex portfolio of companywide significance, made decisions around strategy for your product portfolio (product mix, new products, retirement of old products) that led to greater customer stratification, improved profitability or lead to cost savings and generated huge business value for the organization
• You are acknowledged as a thought leader in your domain and can influence through proven successes, e.g. Algorithmic, Process, Methodology definition
• Proven expertise in seeking out and dealing with ambiguous, unstructured challenges, quick to find opportunities and shape strategies around them as an individual contributor.
• Took multiple ideas (at least one new product/ idea) from conception to go-live, through standard software product development lifecycle and got measurable success across defined Key Results.
• Knowledge and experience of product management best practice and methodologies and strong technical acumen.
• Have shown significant improvement in your Product Outcomes and Key Results and helped team set Key Results for new/ other products.
• Effectively worked with senior stakeholders to gather feedback and new requirements.
• Technically competent to influence and understand the solution context and approach and aid engineering in estimating the complexity of work being requested.
• Leading complex and iterative product developments requiring close integration of Data Science and Engineering teams
• Fostering innovation and driving scientific discovery in parallel to core product development
• Delivering high impact Data Science developments within complex organisations
• Have great prioritization and decision making skills and have made good decisions/ judgements around business priorities and resource allocation, etc.

Desirable experience

• Knowledge and experience of paradigms and trade-offs surrounding software architectures and software technical design choices.

Applying Machine Learning to problems in Retail