head of product operations

Country: Spain

At Santander Group, we're redefining how our product teams operate at scale — ensuring they are empowered, aligned, and equipped to deliver world-class digital products. As part of this evolution, we're looking for a Head of Product Operations to build, run, and continuously optimize the foundations, processes, and operating rhythm that enable high-performing product teams across the Digital Channels domain.

Your mission: drive operational excellence across the Digital Channels domain by ensuring teams have the right structures, tools, data, and coordination mechanisms to deliver consistently and efficiently. You will oversee the domain's budget, establish clear goals and KPIs, monitor progress, and ensure our product organisation runs with clarity, alignment, transparency, and accountability.

This is an opportunity to shape how a major digital organisation operates — creating the systems, governance, and insights that help product teams focus on what matters most: building exceptional customer experiences.

Key Responsibilities
Operational Excellence & Governance

• Oversee the end-to-end operating rhythm for the domain — including planning cycles, OKRs/KPIs, progress reviews, and quarterly business reviews.
• Ensure consistent methodologies, processes, and decision-making frameworks across product teams.
• Manage domain budgets, ensuring financial visibility, efficient resource planning, and responsible allocation.
• Continuously assess and improve ceremonies, metrics, and mechanisms to drive focus on the right initiatives and efficient delivery.

Cross-Team Coordination & Alignment

• Act as the central coordination point across product, technology, design, data, and business teams to align objectives, priorities, and dependencies.
• Remove operational blockers, streamline workflows, and enable predictable execution.
• Lead transparent communication on strategy, progress, risks, and outcomes across the domain.

Resource, Tooling & Organisational Management

• Partner with HR, Finance, and Technology to manage headcount planning, hiring, onboarding, and team organisation.
• Ensure teams have the right tools, systems, and shared platforms to deliver effectively.
• Drive adoption of common standards for documentation, productivity tools, and collaboration practices.
• Shape and evolve organisational structure to support scalability and operational efficiency.

Data, Insights & Performance Tracking

• Develop and maintain dashboards, reporting frameworks, and metrics to track performance and inform decisions.
• Use data to identify risks, inefficiencies, and opportunities for improvement.
• Provide actionable insights that enhance planning, prioritisation, and execution across product teams.

Stakeholder Management & Communication

• Partner with product leads and senior leaders to align on priorities, resources, and outcomes.
• Communicate progress, risks, and decisions clearly across multiple countries and functions.
• Establish Product Operations as a trusted, strategic partner to product leadership.

What We're Looking For

• Degree in Business, Engineering, Product Management, Operations, or related fields.
• Proven experience in product operations, business operations, program management, or similar roles within digital/tech organisations.
• Strong skills in operational frameworks, planning cycles, goal setting (OKRs), process improvement, and budget ownership.
• High proficiency in data analysis, reporting, and using insights to optimise performance.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to coordinate and enable multiple teams in a complex, fast-moving environment.
• Fluent in English; additional languages are a plus.

What we offer:

• A dynamic, high-impact role shaping the future of digital banking.
• Competitive compensation and opportunities for career growth.
• International collaboration and exposure to cutting-edge financial innovation.

Would you like to grow with us? Join our team
Santander is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered as equal without paying attention to gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, age, political orientation, union membership nor disability status.
We make recruiting decisions based on your experience and skills. We value your passion to discover, invent, simplify, and build.