IT Product Manager for Web Applications in Breeding (all gender)

About KWS

KWS is one of the world’s leading plant breeding companies. Over 5,000 employees in more than 70 countries generated net sales of around €1.8 billion in the fiscal year 2022/2023. A company with a tradition of family ownership, KWS has operated independently for 165 years. It focuses on plant breeding and the production and sale of seed for corn, sugar beet, cereals, vegetables, oilseed rape and sunflower. KWS uses leading-edge plant breeding methods to continuously improve yield for farmers and plants’ resistance to diseases, pests, and abiotic stress. To that end, the company invested more than €300 million last fiscal year in research and development. 

Your responsibilities:

Are you passionate about developing innovative web applications that support the digitalization of plant breeding? Do you have the skills and experience to lead an agile development team and deliver value to our internal customers? If yes, then you might be the perfect fit for our IT product manager (all gender) position at KWS Saat SE & Co. KGaA in Einbeck, Lower Saxony.
As a product manager, you will be part of the Digital Breeding Applications team and work on web applications that enable the creation, management, and analysis of breeding programs. 

You will be responsible for:

• Understanding the needs and challenges of our internal customers from breeding and translating them into user stories and specifications.
• Prioritizing and defining the scope of the web applications and ensuring alignment with the company’s strategy and vision.
• Collaborating with process analysts and developers to design, test, launch, and support web applications that provide a seamless user experience and deliver value to our customers.
• Communicating and engaging with various user groups and stakeholders to collect feedback, generate insights, and drive outcomes.
• Maintaining and supporting a legacy application while planning and executing a smooth transition to new web applications.
• Handling customer expectations with empathy and professionalism, providing solutions that meet their needs.

Your profile:

To succeed in this role, you should have:

• A university degree in computer science, agricultural engineering, business informatics, or a related field.
• Experience in product management, user research, and agile development methodologies.
• A product mindset and intuition, with the ability to handle ambiguity, identify tradeoffs, and make data-driven decisions.
• An open-minded, self-motivated, structured, and customer-oriented attitude, with intercultural experience as you will work at KWS with people from different backgrounds and in direct customer relationships to find solutions with & for them.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with a high level of proficiency in English (spoken and written) as we are using this for all communication within the team and with our internal customers. German is a plus.
• Ideally knowledge in data analysis and system design.
• Preferably first experience in replacing legacy applications with modern web applications as this is one of our future goals for the team.

What you can expect:

• As a family-run company we are guided by the values of closeness, reliability, foresight and independence - this culture is lived in practice creating thus an open and friendly working atmosphere.​
• True to our motto Make yourself grow, we support employees’ professional and personal development.​
• We offer excellent work equipment (e.g. ergonomic workstations, several monitors, air conditioning, high-end technical equipment) and a fully-fledged, subsidized canteen. ​
• We create the appropriate framework conditions for you: a company pension scheme, capital formation benefits, Christmas and holiday bonuses, special prices for company shares, childcare allowance and a job bike option. ​
• Health & Safety are very important for us: our company doctor, company fire brigade / paramedics (with time credit) and company sports create a solid base for this.​