Product Manager

Description

About WPP ET

WPP Enterprise Technology (ET) provides IT services for WPP Media, one of the world’s largest communications services group.

As a creative transformation company, WPP Media is helping its clients transform the future through extraordinary work. WPP ET is an integral part of that journey, and we are proud to provide technology for some of the world’s most creative brands.

Role Purpose:

At WPP Media, technology is at the heart of everything we do, and it is WPP Media’s mission to enable everyone to collaborate, create and thrive. WPP Enterprise Technology (ET) is undergoing a significant transformation to modernise ways of working, shift to cloud and micro-service-based architectures, drive automation, digitise colleague and client experiences and deliver insight from WPP’s petabytes of data.

WPP Media is the world’s leading media investment company responsible for more than $63B in annual media investment through agencies Mindshare, MediaCom, Wavemaker, Essence and m/SIX, as well as the outcomes-driven programmatic audience company, Xaxis and data and technology company Choreograph. WPP Media’s portfolio includes Data & Technology, Investment and Services, all united in a vision to shape the next era of media where advertising works better for people. By leveraging all the benefits of scale, the company innovates, differentiates and generates sustained value for our clients wherever they do business.

The WPP Media IT team in WPP ET are the technology solutions partner for the WPP Media group of agencies and are accountable for co-ordinating and assuring end-to-end change delivery, managing the WPP Media IT technology life-cycle and innovation pipeline. This role will work as part of the WPP ET - Activate Team for the Netherlands. This position will work with the local Dutch team, its business users, the regional and global teams of WPP ET and the Global Engineering Center in Chennai, India to ensure the delivery, availability and support of several key media-finance applications. This position will also have a responsibility for understanding client business and technical requirements and then delivering appropriate end-to-end solutions consisting of component-based, services-oriented applications. The position will also be responsible for supporting existing applications and processes.

Key Responsibilities

• Responsible for in-depth knowledge of assigned software, technologies, and functions, serving as a liaison between business users, in-house and/or 3rd party developers and SaaS vendors.
• Strategic and tactical relationships both internally within the developers, infra & support engineers, program managers and business stakeholders, but also externally with 3rd party developers, 3rd party support and vendors.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including developers, QA analysts, system administrators, and business analysts.
• Help the team meet and exceed the support goals for the assigned software/applications.
• Monitors and communicates team progress to the necessary stakeholders.
• Evaluate and manage relationships with third-party vendors and service providers.
• Negotiate contracts and service level agreements to ensure cost-effectiveness and quality of services.
• Stay informed about industry trends and emerging technologies to make informed decisions regarding software solutions.
• Identify and mitigate potential risks associated with application development and deployment.
• Develop and implement security measures to protect sensitive information and ensure compliance with relevant regulations.
• Simultaneously supports the entire project management cycle of multiple projects.
• Work collaboratively with Business Partner Team and Business Stakeholder during projects scoping and feasibility phases as a SME for concept investigation/viability and technical impact; Identify and communicate technical risks and mitigations.
• Provide production support for key media/finance applications.
• Maintain or upgrade existing applications.
• Attend key design meetings and provide support.
• Other ad hoc duties.

Skill Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics or other technical field is highly preferred.
• Experience with project management methodologies such as agile, waterfall, or hybrid. Previously Agile methodology experience is also preferred.
• Be skilled in project and priority triage work effectively within broad parameters, and operate with considerable autonomy.
• Certification in project management (e.g., PMP) is a plus.
• Knowledge of industry-specific compliance standards and regulations.
• Familiarity with DevOps practices.
• Team player
• Organized and detail oriented
• Excellent communication, presentation, and writing skills
• Thrives in a fast paced, constantly changing environment

Behaviours

• You’re open: We are inclusive and collaborative; we encourage the free exchange of ideas; we respect and celebrate diverse views. We are open-minded: to new ideas, new partnerships, new ways of working.
• You’re optimistic: We believe in the power of creativity, technology and talent to create brighter futures or our people, our clients and our communities. We approach all that we do with confidence: to try the new and to seek the unexpected.
• You’re extraordinary: we are stronger together: through collaboration we achieve the amazing. We are creative leaders and pioneers of our industry; we deliver extraordinary every day.