Early Years Product Specialist
As a Early Years Product Specialist, you will help shape and deliver digital products that support Early Years Funding and related services within a regulated UK public-sector context. You will work across customers, product, design and engineering teams to understand user needs, interpret statutory and operational requirements, and translate them into clear, actionable and testable product requirements.
The role combines strong business analysis practice with domain expertise in Early Years and local authority processes. You will play a key part in ensuring that solutions are user-centred, operationally effective, compliant with relevant statutory guidance, and aligned to product strategy and delivery priorities.
You will contribute across the product lifecycle, from discovery and analysis through to delivery, validation and continuous improvement.
Core Responsibilities
- Work with customers, users and internal teams to understand current processes, pain points, policy intent and desired outcomes.
- Analyse and document business processes, service workflows, business rules, data requirements and user journeys for Early Years Funding and related services.
- Translate statutory guidance, operational policy and local authority practice into clear product requirements, acceptance criteria and solution options.
- Break down complex problems into manageable features, stories and increments that can be delivered in an agile environment.
- Support product discovery by helping define problem statements, user needs, success measures, assumptions and options.
- Collaborate closely with Product Managers/Owners, Designers, Developers, QA and Support teams to ensure shared understanding of requirements and priorities.
- Facilitate workshops, interviews and playback sessions with stakeholders to validate understanding, align expectations and build consensus.
- Own or support the production of high-quality BA artefacts, such as process maps, decision tables, requirements, business rules, user stories, acceptance criteria, wireframes and service models.
- Ensure requirements are clear, consistent, prioritised, traceable and maintained as products evolve.
- Support backlog refinement and sprint planning by ensuring items are sufficiently defined, testable and aligned to business value.
- Work with delivery teams during build and test to clarify requirements, resolve queries, support test scenario design and validate outcomes.
- Use customer insight, operational data, service feedback and performance information to identify opportunities for product and process improvement.
- Assess the impact of policy, regulatory or operational changes on product behaviour, workflows, data and reporting.
- Support solution evaluation by reviewing whether delivered changes meet user needs, regulatory intent and operational objectives.
- Act as a subject matter contributor for Early Years Funding processes and help share knowledge across the wider business.
- 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