Raymond Francis, Product Manager in London, United Kingdom
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Raymond Francis

Verified Expert  in Product Management

Product Manager

London, United Kingdom

Toptal member since August 23, 2024

Expertise
Product OwnersAgile Product Management
Bio

Raymond is a dynamic product and project manager and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) with over 15 years of experience in digital product development, specializing in Agile methodologies. With a background in software engineering and later as a technical project manager and product owner, Raymond has honed his skills in project management and stakeholder collaboration across diverse industries, including travel, telecommunications, and banking.

Project Highlights

MuPPET | Model Pipeline Tool
Served as product manager for a tool that enabled internal data scientists to train their machine-learning (ML) models.
On-demand Environments
Headed the cloud engineering team at Vodafone, driving the delivery of innovative on-demand environments.
CI/CD Pipeline for a Large-scale Web Application
Achieved a 37% reduction in the time required to release new features.

Expertise

  • Agile
  • Cloud Migration
  • Jira
  • Kanban
  • Product Management
  • Product Owner
  • Product Ownership
  • Scrum

Work Experience

Senior Technical Product Owner

2022 - 2024
Santander UK
  • Delivered a cloud infrastructure solution to enable over 17,000 call center workers to access critical services faster and smoother.
  • Migrated over 800 apps from an on-premise solution to a public cloud as a full infrastructure as a service (IaaS) solution.
  • Integrated Azure DevOps to enhance CI/CD pipelines and improve overall workflow efficiency.

Technical Product Manager

2020 - 2022
Vodafone UK
  • Secured an additional £5 million in funding for cloud-related projects. This accomplishment, a first for me, allowed us to expand the team from two to five teams within a few months.
  • Implemented a new demand process for the newly formed cloud engineering team.
  • Provided vision and guidance for over 120 engineers across 13 teams. Implemented a new working method, incorporating business-as-usual (BAU) and value stream teams to deliver business and internal requirements.

Technical Product Owner

2012 - 2020
Expedia
  • Migrated multiple applications from on-site data centers to AWS, resulting in annual savings of over $3 million and delivering faster, more reliable service to our clients.
  • Project-managed the migration of a fully-fledged tax platform, enabling the company to achieve an estimated $100 million return on investment (ROI).
  • Developed a Price Display API for Expedia Group brands, enhancing market competitiveness and generating $30 million in gross profit for the corporation.

Project History

MuPPET | Model Pipeline Tool

Served as product manager for a tool that enabled internal data scientists to train their machine-learning (ML) models.

The MuPPET tool enabled users to train their Predictive Model Markup Language (PMML) models, enhancing the hotel search experience on Expedia. It allowed data scientists to train models and release them to production seamlessly without the need for additional processes.

On-demand Environments

Headed the cloud engineering team at Vodafone, driving the delivery of innovative on-demand environments.

I drove the delivery of innovative on-demand environments with full CI/CD functionality, enabling multiple daily software releases.

For this project, I received the 2021 DevOps industry award for Best DevOps Project Delivering Business Value, highlighting expertise in project execution and value delivery.

CI/CD Pipeline for a Large-scale Web Application

Achieved a 37% reduction in the time required to release new features.

I implemented a CI/CD pipeline for a large-scale web application, demonstrating strong project management skills. Also, I collaborated directly with cloud and software engineers to translate business requirements into technical solutions.

Certifications

AUGUST 2018 - AUGUST 2020

Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)

Scrum Alliance

Skills

Tools

Jira, Slack, MURAL

Paradigms

Scrum, Agile, Kanban, Azure DevOps, DevOps, Continuous Deployment

Other

Product Management, Product Ownership, Cloud Migration, Product Owner, IT Project Management, Cloud, People Management, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), AWS Management Console, People Development, PMML, Machine Learning, Demand Management

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