Product Owner at De Beers Group

Job Description

The Product Owner is a tactical member and an integral part of the development team, responsible for maximizing the value of the products created by the development team.

This role is responsible and accountable for the product backlog and ensuring the product development support the company’s strategy and goals.

The PO ensures the developers are working efficiently and on the right items. This includes overseeing sprints, being the primary point of contact, and providing constant feedback to the development team.

Key responsibilities include

• Work closely with the Product Manger to understand industry, market needs, roadmap, and strategy.
• Identify and understand customer pain points, assist in defining solutions and bring them to life as well as be the voice of the customer in the team.
• Use discovery techniques to manage product risk (value, usability, feasibility, and viability), and to test those risks qualitatively and quantitatively.
• Translate product managers’ strategies to tasks for development to bridge the gap between product strategy and development.
• Work closely with the Dev and QA team to aid understanding of user stories, journeys and business value.
• Conduct and own Sprint ceremonies and act as a key player throughout each event, including planning, refinement, review, and sprint demos.
• With each iteration, evaluate, verify, and validate outcomes by performing UAT, and be responsible for all communication during releases.
• Own the product backlog to define and prioritise a backlog of products features and capabilities; update a dynamic and constantly evolving backlog; develop and explicitly communicate Product and Sprint Goals; clearly communicate each Product Backlog item, ensuring that the Product Backlog is transparent, visible, and understood.
• Make data lead decisions on go/no go product and feature recommendation.

Qualifications

• Relevant Bachelors Degree: BSc (Engineering / Software development); BCom (MBA preferred)

Role-specific knowledge and experience:

• Experience as a Product Owner or Product Manager or Business Analysis Manager, Engineering Manager.
• Demonstrated success defining and launching excellent products.
• Technical background, with experience in a relevant engineering/science discipline.
• Proven ability to influence cross-functional teams without formal authority.
• Experienced in using discovery techniques to uncover user needs.
• Analytical, with the ability to gather data, synthesize the data and tell a story.
• Agile Evangelist