Critical TechWorks develops software systems for the next generation of BMW's driving machines and for the digitalisation of BMW Group's production and sales processes. 

No great stands without solid foundations and no world-class product exist without a strong platform. The automotive industry is in transformation, never were digital platforms so core as they are now. CTW has plenty of opportunities for you to help pave this transformation.

As a Platform Product Visionary, you will be the product owner of a technical product. You will have users and will need to be user-focused, as any PO should be, but your users will be developers from other teams or some other sort of technical user.

You will have to have the organizational and analytical skills of a PO and the mindset of a developer advocate. For the platform provider, success is measured by the agility and quality it enables for creating products and for the happiness it brings to the developers using it.

Because their users are developers or other technical users, the Platform Product Visionary shall have a strong technical background. You, as a platform PV, will not be designing or implementing the product but shall be able and motivated to understand the concepts and implications of what is being developed.

But what kind of platforms are we talking about?

• Cloud CI/CD and DevOps infrastructure are provided as PaaS or SaaS to a wide range of projects.
• Middleware services for various purposes, in the vehicle or in the cloud – e.g., data streaming pipelines, remote services, over-the-air updates, etc.
• CI infrastructure for large scale integration (e.g., full operating systems plus default apps); automated system testing frameworks with HW in the loop, etc.

Beyond the tech domain, the making of a Platform PV is the standard for a product owner. 

Organisation, communication, and analytical skills will be paramount to your success. You shall assure that the product vision, backlog, and roadmap is well understood by developers. Your platform will likely serve many users and/or provide APIs other teams will use. Therefore, you will likely be part of a large-scale project, where dependency management will be key to backlog ordering. You may also have a sizeable number of indirect stakeholders.

Whatever the project, these are the core items you'll be focused on:

• Interacting with users, stakeholders, and teams to understand business needs and create a common understanding of what needs to be built
• Assessing the value, developing cases, and ordering stories, epics, and themes to optimize the value of the work performed by the DevOps team
• Providing vision and direction for all involved throughout the project 

Anything else?

Apart from great technical skills, our environment is fast-paced and 100% agile, and prioritizes autonomy, teamwork, interaction and resilience.

We’re organized into Scrum teams and projects typically consist of one or more teams sharing a common development, configuration management and continuous delivery environment.

Platforms, either infrastructure or services, are used by many teams. You, as a Platform PV, maybe work in a scaled structure such as LeSS. System engineering skills will be paramount to assess impacts and dependencies so as to do a proper ordering of the backlog. Experience in large-scale software projects, embedded systems, industrial applications, telecom systems, or similar domains will be highly valuable for you in this role. 

All put together, the Product Visionary role calls for the following skills:

• 5yrs+ of professional experience in software and/or system engineering roles
• Systems thinking – a strong motivation to understand how large-scale systems work and how to improve them.
• Strong people and negotiation skills that foster a supportive environment, constructive feedback and ideas sharing.
• Excellent oral communication and written skills – including the ability to speak and write in English.
• Great organizational and analytical capabilities complemented by attention to detail and ability to record and report information accurately.
• A real passion for learning, doing things better and helping others, and strong drive to turn ideas into realities.
• Experience of agile methodologies.
• Availability to travel abroad for short periods of time, as required.
• Optional bonus: familiarity with cloud infrastructure or automotive systems (AUTOSAR or infotainment).
• Optional bonus: the ability to converse in German.

At Critical Techworks we are creating an inclusive culture that values our people’s different viewpoints and experiences, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, age, color, ethnicity, religion, or disability.