Staff Product Manager - Technical SEO
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Sainsbury's Tech
Closing date: 23 June 2025
Requisition ID: 400002024
We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Think about the scale it takes for us to feed the nation. The level of data, transactions and variety it involves. Then you’ll realise that ours is a modern software engineering environment because it has to be. We’ve made serious investment into a Tech Academy and into setting standards and principles. We iterate, learn, experiment and push ways of working such as Agile, Scrum and XP. So you can look forward to awesome opportunities in everything from AI to reusable tech.
In a nutshell
In Sainsbury’s Tech, we power the UK’s number 1 multi-channel, multi-brand retailer.
The Staff Product Manager for Technical SEO is relentlessly focused on understanding, anticipating, and exceeding customer needs for digital products, specifically within the SEO domain. They champion the long-term vision for their products in line with our overarching business goals and work horizontally across the immediate team and the broader product and tech function to coordinate and prioritize the diverse requirements of their product that may fall into other delivery areas.
The role holder understands the differing requirements of the customer, business, and Engineering/Architecture and uses this knowledge to ultimately drive the delivery of SEO strategies. This includes engaging in technical discussions, deciphering business value, spotting opportunities, and integrating SEO best practices into the development lifecycle of new and existing products. They use SEO metrics to prioritize their specific product roadmap effectively and seek out the data and insight that enables them to make informed decisions.
To enable success, the role holder needs to consider the market context and can clearly articulate the business benefit of potential and current SEO strategies while tracking both effort and value delivery to identify opportunities for cost reduction and quality improvement.
What I need to do
• Supporting the strategy, develop specific roadmaps and backlogs for technical SEO, building in complete end-to-end customer experiences that deliver enhanced visibility.
• Own the customer and business value for SEO, including securing support through the appropriate process and relevant technology teams.
• Actively collaborate closely with product and engineering teams to integrate SEO best practices into the development lifecycle of new and existing products.
• Accountable for end-to-end delivery in product management for specific products, ensuring activity is prioritized in line with the agreed product goals and metrics.
• Maintain a realistic 90-day roadmap, as well as a prioritized, estimated FY backlog and regularly communicate progress, proactively managing risks/issues to remove blockers.
• Lead the collaboration within both the core family team, other product teams, and third parties to launch new product features, maximizing re-use across the division/business/brands.
• Educate and train internal teams on technical SEO best practices, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and learning.
• Conduct competitive analysis to identify opportunities and threats in the SEO landscape, adapting strategies accordingly.
• Evaluate potential partner relationships; helping to identify necessary and/or desirable third-party technology to evaluate and select vendors.
• Support communication and resolution of live product incidents and effectively prioritize, coordinate, and communicate the resolution of production issues.
How I will succeed
• Translating business and technology strategy, combined with market knowledge, into a product roadmap that prioritizes delivery of value and enables future business agility.
• Determine the right level and choice of material to communicate the experience, benefits, and long-term vision for the product across a variety of audiences including development teams, stakeholders at all levels, partners, and external parties.
• Contributing to effective prioritization choices to deliver the maximum value and return on capital.
• Build highly collaborative relationships with engineering teams, working together to solve problems for our customers and the business.
• Creating a positive impact with internal and external audiences, ensuring senior stakeholder advocacy for the product.
• Maintain a good level of awareness, interest, and understanding of the existing SEO stack/interfaces for products and how to develop these so they work seamlessly for customers and colleagues.
• Apply data and research through sharing insight to ensure the team is focused on making the biggest difference for customers and the business.
• Develop a culture of learning, empowerment, experimentation, and collaboration.
• Own key performance indicators to measure success for the role’s contribution.
• Contribute to the Community of practice, integrating SEO knowledge into our wider community.
What I need to know
• Knowledge and understanding of a retail business and the technology landscape, and how to maximize the value that digital products can and will add.
• In-depth knowledge of technical SEO, including site architecture, crawlability, indexability, and on-page optimization.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret data and make data-driven decisions.
• Proven experience in managing complex projects, with excellent organizational and time management skills.
• Previous experience with third-party insight tools e.g. Conductor, SEO Clarity, Botify, Lighthouse, SEMrush, and Similarweb (or equivalent).
• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of the SEO marketplace and available insight.
• Robust knowledge of Excel and thorough understanding of Google/Bing Search Console, knowledge of Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, and other major third-party analytics platforms.
• Understanding of Agile delivery and modern engineering team practices.
• Knowledge of technical product development principles and methodologies
What I need to show
• Judgement to make sometimes difficult and complex decisions at pace, including comfortable dealing with ambiguous situations and help drive toward clarity
• Delivery of technology led change in cross-functional environments
• Focus on delivering customer value and business outcomes at pace, continuously optimising activity and ways of working to ensure that we are set up to deliver customer value
• Passion for seeking value and helping motivate and support technology teams
• Strong communication and influencing skills, particularly at senior levels
• Creative problem solving, enthusiasm for delivering change through people and technology
• Anticipating risks and opportunities, responding to escalations at pace and supporting to find solutions
• A high level of team contribution, seek opportunities to provide input and support across the team and outside core areas of focus, role model effective collaboration
• Embrace shared responsibility and role model effective collaboration
• Influencing iterative decision making, including managing ambiguity
Resources available to me
• Line manager, peers and wider team
• Product competency framework and community of practice
• Learning and development opportunities
• Specific budget for products (budget ownership sits with SPM Line Manager)
What decisions I can make
• All decisions related to delivering the roadmap for your products
• Product Manager resourcing across your product
• Prioritisation and value return across your product area with multi million pound capital budget
We are committed to making Tech a place where people love to work where diverse and engaged team make a purposeful contribution. Sainsbury’s is committed to being the most inclusive retailer, and flexible working including job sharing is welcomed wherever possible. In Tech we welcome such conversations and are proud to champion a diverse and inclusive culture.
#LI-KF1
We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them: Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.
Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 20% of salary, depending on how we perform.
Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, interest free car loan of up to £10k, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an Employee Assistance Programme, you will also be eligible for private healthcare too.
Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).
