Product and Proposition Lead - Merchandising
Contract type: Permanent
Location: Hatfield (Hybrid working - 3 days in the office)
Working hours per week: 40 hours
Level: Lead
About us
Our mission is to deliver joy in every shop, through unbeatable choice, unrivalled service, and reassuringly good value.
We’re Ocado Retail, a market-leading joint venture between Ocado Group and M&S, and the world’s largest dedicated online supermarket, ocado.com. Not only is Ocado.com the only place to shop a full range of M&S food online, it’s also the home to the widest online supermarket range in the UK and champion of small, independent brands. We’re also the brains behind Zoom by Ocado, our same-day grocery delivery service.
About the team and the role
Ocado Retail’s mission is to be the world’s leading online grocer, delivering joy in every shop. As the Product and Proposition Lead for Merchandising, you will turn this vision into reality by leading our top-of-funnel discovery experience. From initial Search and Browse through to Meal Planning and Agentic AI interactions, you will ensure every touchpoint is intuitive, joyful, and moving us closer to our strategic vision.
This role focuses on solving complex customer and commercial problems to drive measurable Product KPIs. You will own a domain that includes Search, Browse, Shopping Tools, Promotions, and Agentic AI, acting as the primary interface between the technical capabilities of Ocado Group as well as the customer and commercial needs of Ocado Retail. By leveraging data and insights, you will define how our customers discover, choose, and purchase their groceries.
What you’ll do
Vision and Strategy
Product Vision: Create and maintain an aspirational product vision, bringing to life how we will deliver joy in every shop through your domain.
Product Strategy: Define the strategy to achieve the vision, identifying the specific customer and business problems to be solved.
Roadmap: Build a clear, sequenced roadmap that prioritises maximum customer and business value for minimum implementation effort.
Milestone Planning: Set clear product milestones (MVP, MMP) and ensure all stakeholder perspectives are integrated into the long-term plan.
Discovery and Delivery
Problem Solving: Engage stakeholders to collaboratively discover problems and identify opportunities, building strong business cases for your solutions.
Decomposition: Translate high-level strategy into clear, well documented features.
Test and Learn: Apply data-driven testing (A/B tests, user research) to validate assumptions, synthesising insights to drive decisive product action.
Product Delivery: Proactively track feature delivery progress against expectations, escalating and driving course-correcting action if deliverables are off-track.
End-to-End Thinking: Analyse opportunities within the context of the entire business ecosystem, ensuring a seamless launch and ongoing optimisation for every feature.
Performance and Prioritisation
Commercial Focus: Prioritise the product backlog to drive performance of the business and product KPIs.
Performance Dynamics: Maintain a strong, real-time understanding of your product’s performance, communicating clearly how these metrics tie into our broader business objectives.
Product Leadership
Matrix Leadership: Inspire and lead a cross organisation matrix team, acting as captain to ensure the right decisions are made for your domain.
Stakeholder Partnerships: Establish trusting partnerships with stakeholders and act as a passionate evangelist for your product vision across both Ocado Group (OG) and Ocado Retail (ORL) at all levels.
Product Marketing: Lead the internal and external product marketing strategy for your domain, ensuring internal and external audiences have total clarity on product features.
Who you are
Strategic and Decisive: Expert at defining product visions and prioritising the most impactful value-drivers amidst organisational complexity.
Customer Focused: Deeply analytical regarding customer needs, using qualitative and quantitative data to define new product experiences..
Effective Communicator: An articulate stakeholder manager who can influence at all levels to maintain delivery momentum.
Accountability: A reliable owner of product challenges who drives resolution across teams and acts as a partner to the wider business.
What’s in it for you
By joining Ocado Retail, you’ll have the chance to experience life at the world’s largest online retailer, work with an amazing bunch of people who challenge what’s possible each day, and grow your skills and career in online retail.
If that’s not enough to tempt you, you’ll also get access to loads of great benefits to sweeten the deal. Here’s a taste of what we offer:
Health & Wellbeing: Private medical insurance with option to add your family, Digital GP appointments, market-leading family policies, mental health support, discounted gym memberships, dental insurance, and more.
Spend & Save: Annual bonus scheme split between personal and business objectives, recognition with reward platform, up to 7% matched pension contributions, 15% Ocado discount, 20% M&S discount, free breakfast every day in the office, electric vehicle leasing scheme, and free shuttle bus from Hatfield station to the office.
Never miss the moments that matter: Hybrid working, 26 days holiday plus 8 flexible bank holidays, options to buy extra holiday, 2 weeks work from anywhere, and lifestyle break opportunities.
Our Hiring Process
Lucky for us, we receive a high volume of applications and genuinely appreciate the time and effort invested by every candidate. To ensure a fair and thorough process, every application is reviewed by a member of our team. If your skills and experience are a strong match, a Talent Partner will contact you to discuss the role and guide you through the next steps of our hiring process.
Your Application and AI
In the spirit of innovation, we welcome you to use AI tools in your application, just as we use them in our own business at Ocado Retail. However, as you leverage this technology, please don't lose sight of the most important element: your unique self. Your experiences, passions, and personality are what truly set you apart. Ensure that your application still authentically conveys who you are and why you're a great fit for us.
Everyone’s welcome
We’re an equal opportunities employer, which means that we make sure all potential colleagues are treated fairly and equally. We want to ensure everyone has a fair chance to apply; if you need this job description in an alternative format (e.g., larger print, different document type, etc.), please reach out to us at [email protected] and we'll be happy to assist you, and if you require reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know on the application form.
