Assistant Director

Position Overview
Position Overview:
The position is under the Products Division of Smart Nation Group, reporting to the Deputy Director. The Products Division looks at Whole-of-Government (WOG) product development processes, and how we can use digital products to solve key problems. The candidate should be passionate about creating impact with technology. The job has
2 main aspects – driving product excellence across the Government and serving as the Government’s thought leader in product management practices . Given the dual policy and product nature of the job, the candidate will work at the cross-section between technology policy and product management/engineering/design. Negotiation and stakeholder management is also a key aspect of the job, supporting both the product excellence and direct intervention areas.
Driving product excellence: The candidate will lead in driving policies to drive product excellence across whole-of-Government (WOG). This involves designing and implementing system-wide interventions to institute best product practices, or reviewing existing processes to encourage faster, cheaper and better products. The candidate will also consider interventions to better develop the Government’s technology stack or product portfolio, e.g. whether we should create new stack components, how we can get components within this stack to work together better to deliver digital services.
Leader in product management practices: The candidate will support the uplifting product management capabilities of product teams across Government by serving as the Government’s leader in product management practices. This will involve designing systems to uphold high product standards, uplifting product managers across Government to these standards, and providing guidance to teams. Some of these problem spaces may require clearing barriers from legal regulations, policy issues, resourcing frameworks, or cross-agency negotiations; to be effective, the candidate should also be comfortable handling these areas.
Key Responsibilities
Plan, test and execute policies, processes and strategies to drive product excellence across WOG. This may involve coordination among different government agencies, driving changes across GovTech and/or WOG.
Uplift product standards across WOG, and intervene in key problem spaces to enable good products.
Build subject matter expertise and stay up to date on technological developments in digital products.
Key skills candidate can develop in this role
Product policy, especially in the Government context, in problem solving on behalf of digital teams to enable them to move faster and more efficiently;
Product management, in ensuring that digital products in Government adopt best product practices and retain alignment to management vision;
Stakeholder engagement, working across multiple agencies, management of conflicts;
Understanding of Government ICT landscape.
Requirements
Policy experience
Demonstrated success in policy formulation and implementation
Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
Strong writing ability, able to clearly articulate a policy position or strategy, and defend one’s views
Product management experience
Demonstrated impact in building and managing products
Culture
Strong work ethic in taking ownership and accountability to solve the problem
Willingness to try new approaches, fail and improve, and try again
Biased towards action and not afraid to challenge the status quo
A desire to learn and continuously improve
Resourceful; ability to work independently to get things done in a fast-paced environment
Optional requirements:
Software engineering or designer experience
Willingness to deal with ambiguity
Start-up mindset, willing to find ways to generate value for stakeholders
Additional Information
If you are enthusiastic about leveraging technology to drive positive change and are eager to contribute to Singapore's smart nation vision, we encourage you to apply.
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