Early Years Product Specialist
RemoteUnited Kingdom
Job Summary
Work with customers, users, and internal teams to understand current processes, pain points, policy intent, and desired outcomes for Early Years Funding services. Analyse and document business processes, service workflows, data requirements, and user journeys, then translate statutory guidance and operational policy into clear product requirements, acceptance criteria, and solution options. Break down complex problems into manageable features, stories, and increments for agile delivery, while collaborating with Product Managers, Designers, Developers, and QA teams to ensure shared understanding. Facilitate workshops and interviews to validate understanding and build consensus, then support backlog refinement and sprint planning by ensuring items are sufficiently defined and testable. Work with delivery teams during build and test to clarify requirements, resolve queries, and validate outcomes, using customer insight and operational data to identify opportunities for product and process improvement.
Required Qualifications
- Knowledge of Early Years Funding processes, including eligibility, applications, provider submissions, validation, payments & reporting
- Proven experience within a Product, software, digital or product delivery environment
- Experienced in translating complex business, policy or operational needs into clear, deliverable software requirements
- Ability to interpret statutory guidance and operational policy, and translate these into system requirements, workflows and business rules
- Strong process analysis and modelling skills, including documenting current and future state processes, workflows and business rules
- Experience working in agile delivery teams, including backlog refinement, user story development and iterative delivery practices
- Ability to write clear, concise and testable user stories and acceptance criteria
- Experience facilitating workshops and engaging a wide range of stakeholders to identify needs, resolve ambiguity and align priorities
- Experience producing and interpreting artefacts such as process maps, user journeys, wireframes, prototypes, decision tables and requirements documentation
- Working understanding of how modern software solutions are designed, built, tested and released, including the flow of requirements through delivery
- Understanding of both functional and non-functional requirements, including usability, accessibility, performance, security and audit considerations
- Experience using tools such as Jira, Confluence, Figma, Miro, Visio or similar tools
- Familiarity with user-centred design principles and experience working alongside design and research colleagues
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain complex processes, rules and requirements clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences
- Strong stakeholder management and relationship-building skills across customers, internal teams and delivery partners
- Analytical and curious mindset, focused on understanding problems deeply before proposing solutions
- User-focused, with a commitment to delivering meaningful and practical improvements
- Structured and detail-oriented, while maintaining awareness of the wider product and service context
- Collaborative and pragmatic, able to work effectively in multidisciplinary agile teams
- Adaptable and resilient, comfortable working in evolving delivery and regulatory environments
- Proactive and outcome-driven, with a strong sense of ownership and accountability
- Candidates must be able to demonstrate a pre-existing right to work and travel within the UK
- All offers are subject to satisfactory vetting, references and occupational health checks
- Depending on the nature of the role a Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) check may also be required
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