We’re building the UK’s next generation engineering powerhouse, providing critical technology that strengthens national security and resilience.
We specialise in turning advances in sensing, AI, and communications into operational capability for the edge, where connectivity may be degraded or denied. Our work focuses on accelerating the deployment of technology, improving decision-making for frontline teams, and protecting people and critical assets in demanding environments.
Headquartered in Bristol, Rowden employs around 200 people and operates over 20,000 square feet of engineering and manufacturing facilities. We have a growing international footprint and are one of Europe’s fastest-growing engineering businesses.
About the role
Dovetail is Rowden's edge first software platform for configuring, securing and managing frontline operator systems. It covers the situational awareness kit, radios and end user devices that dismounted troops and system integrators rely on in the field. It is built to keep working when connectivity cannot be guaranteed, using offline first Edge Nodes, encrypted local state, signed configuration profiles and a central Edge Manager that syncs as soon as a connection becomes available.
We're looking for a Senior Product Owner to take ownership of the Dovetail roadmap end to end, working across Edge Manager and Edge Node capabilities and mentoring other Product Owners as the team grows. Dovetail is licensed to hardware vendors and system integrators, so the roadmap is shaped as much by integration constraints and security requirements as by internal priorities.
This is a hands on, technical role. You will be reading feature specs that cover RBAC models, sync conflict handling, VPN based connectivity and artefact signing, and you need to be comfortable working at that level of detail rather than relying on engineers to translate it for you.
While this role offers hybrid working options, it requires a minimum of 3 days per week on-site at our Bristol HQ, with travel to customer sites.
Candidates must be eligible for SC clearance.
More information about security clearance is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels
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Make and defend prioritisation trade-offs where requirements conflict, for example offline first constraints against partner feature requests or security hardening.
- Maintain a backlog that holds up to technical scrutiny: clear, testable and sequenced against real dependencies rather than business value alone.
- Translate integration requirements from system integrators and hardware vendors into epics, features and user stories that engineering can build against.
- Write and review acceptance criteria for features involving device lifecycle, identity and access management, sync behaviour and data models, with enough precision that ambiguity does not surface mid sprint.
- Work directly with engineering leads on architectural trade-offs, such as sync conflict resolution or the API contracts between Edge Node and Edge Manager, rather than deferring technical decisions entirely to the team.
- Mentor other Product Owners as the Dovetail team grows, setting the standard for backlog quality, stakeholder handling and requirement clarity.
- Represent the product at a senior level in front of leadership, partners and customers.
- Act as the primary product contact for system integrators and hardware vendors evaluating or building on Dovetail.
- Balance the needs of internal engineering, external partners and security or compliance stakeholders, who will not always agree with each other.
- Run backlog refinement, sprint planning, reviews and acceptance of completed work.
- Ensure UX, engineering and QA are aligned on scope before commitment, not after.
We are looking for a senior product practitioner with the technical depth, judgement and experience to own a roadmap, make architectural trade-offs and act as a trusted voice for engineering, partners and leadership alike.
Essential skills and experience
- 5+ years as a Product Owner or Product Manager, including time owning a roadmap rather than administering a backlog for a technical or platform product.
- Comfortable reading and reasoning about API contracts, data models and system architecture diagrams without engineering translating it for you.
- Working understanding of client-server sync patterns, such as offline first design, eventual consistency and conflict resolution, and why they matter for product decisions.
- Familiarity with authentication and authorisation concepts (OIDC, RBAC, token based authentication) sufficient to write acceptance criteria that hold up under review.
- Experience writing user stories and specifications for backend or platform features, not only UI facing ones.
- Demonstrable experience working with external integration partners, licensees, or OEM and hardware vendors, rather than purely consumer or internal tools experience.
- Proven track record mentoring or informally leading other Product Owners or junior product staff.
- Fluent in Agile delivery (Scrum or Kanban), with hands on experience in Jira or an equivalent tool beyond basic backlog administration.
Desirable (not essential)
- Experience in defence, security, critical infrastructure or another regulated sector.
- Prior exposure to edge computing, IoT device management or MDM style platforms.
- Experience with defence or military procurement cycles, or working alongside system integrators on MOD or NATO aligned programmes.
- Familiarity with SQL or data querying, sufficient to explore device state or sync data directly rather than always requesting a report.
About you
- You are comfortable owning a roadmap and making prioritisation calls that others will disagree with.
- You can read a technical spec and spot the gap before it reaches a sprint.
- You build trust with engineers by understanding their constraints, not just reviewing their output.
- You enjoy mentoring other Product Owners and raising the standard of the wider team.
- You are just as comfortable in a room with a hardware partner as you are in backlog refinement.
We are committed to building a flexible, inclusive, and enabling company. Our aim is to create a diverse team of talented people with unique skills, experience, and backgrounds, so please apply and come as you are!
We also recognise the importance of flexible working and support this wherever we can. We typically operate a flexible, hybrid-working model, with an average 3 days in the office each week (dependent on the role). We welcome the opportunity to discuss flexibility, part-time working requirements and/or workplace adjustments with all our applicants.
Rowden is a Disability Confident Committed company, and we actively encourage people with disabilities and health conditions to apply for our roles. Please let us know your requirements early on so that we can make sure you have everything you need up front to help make the recruitment process and experience as easy as possible.
Finally, if you feel that you don’t meet all the criteria included above but have transferable skills and relevant experience, we’d still love to hear from you!
What matters to us?
- Our focus is on the end user. We exist to deliver the best possible outcomes for the users of our systems.
- Pace matters. The problems we solve are urgent.
- Our diverse skills and backgrounds make us better. Our team prides itself on being inclusive and multidisciplinary.
- We are radically honest. Saying what we mean, even when it isn’t easy.
- We are pragmatists. We provide realistic, focused solutions that get to the point.
- We improve continuously. We are relentless in our drive to make things better.
