R&D Systems AI Product Owner

The opportunity

Mars is transforming its end-to-end innovation processes to help teams spend less time on administration, make better-informed decisions and bring stronger innovations to market faster. As R&D AI Product Owner, you will own the functional vision, product roadmap and lifecycle of AI capabilities supporting this change — from the first requirements conversation through to deployment, adoption and continuous improvement.

This is a business-led T3 individual-contributor role within R&D Transformation, reporting to the Senior R&D Transformation Director. You will have real product decision-making authority, work closely with internal Digital Technology teams and external partners, and build smaller AI agents and automations yourself where a practical, rapid solution will deliver value.

Your initial portfolio

· Automated R&D Documentation — accelerate preparation and review of R&D materials.

· Intelligent Claims Development & Substantiation — strengthen and streamline claims workflows.

· AI-enabled Project & Portfolio Management — connect information, improve project visibility and support decisions.

· Insights to Winning Propositions — turn insights into stronger innovation opportunities and concepts.

The first year will focus on requirements and build support for Documentation and Claims; requirements definition for PPM and Insights; measurable benefits, a prioritised capability roadmap and cross-segment alignment. The portfolio may grow as our AI ambitions develop.

What you will own

· Shape the AI product vision and roadmap, and help inform the longer-term strategy for R&D innovation processes.

· Discover user problems with R&D and Quality teams, turn them into requirements and user stories, and prioritise work by business value, delivery effort and dependencies.

· Own functional product scope and backlog decisions and guide iterative development with Mars and external teams.

· Prototype and create tactical AI skills, agents and automations yourself, using modern AI development tools.

· Define functional needs for enterprise data sources, APIs, MCP integrations and connections into upstream and downstream systems.

· Test products against real use cases, give clear feedback, and support user training, pilots, rollout and ongoing improvement.

· Define outcome measures and demonstrate the productivity, quality and innovation benefits delivered.

· Collaborate across Mars segments to reuse solutions, align requirements and avoid fragmented investments.

· Keep up with emerging AI capabilities and recommend where they can create meaningful value in R&D.

What you will bring

Essential

· You have personally built working AI applications, agents or automations — at work, independently or both — and can discuss what you built, how it works and what you learned.

· You have used multiple AI tools or models and are comfortable with MCP, agent/tool connections, AI-assisted coding and rapid experimentation.

· You can work with practical Python scripts, APIs and JSON, without needing to be a professional software engineer.

· You have worked directly in an R&D or Quality role and understand the realities of scientific or product-development processes.

· You have been a Functional Expert, System Owner or equivalent for at least one enterprise PLM, LIMS or QMS platform.

· You understand Agile ways of working, ceremonies and tools, and can translate complex needs into clear, testable priorities.

· You communicate effectively across scientific, functional and engineering teams and are comfortable making product trade-offs.

Particularly valued

· A Master’s degree in AI, Machine Learning, Data Science or a related field; doctoral-level study is an added advantage.

· Experience with RAG, knowledge systems, agent orchestration, AI evaluation or enterprise integration patterns.

· Experience working across business units, international teams or external development partners.

Why this role matters

You will have the opportunity to connect practical AI innovation with the scientific work at the heart of Mars. Rather than only advising on technology, you will own a visible portfolio, build early solutions, guide enterprise delivery and see the impact on how Associates work. You will also help shape reusable capabilities across Mars businesses.

Role details

Location: Castle Cary, UK | Level: T3 Lead | Reporting to: Senior R&D Transformation Director | Travel: Occasional visits to North America and other Mars business units as required.

Formal recruitment process, posting details and employment terms will be communicated through Mars P&O.

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