Product Owner

As a Product Owner, you will be responsible for the Customer Service business domain and will be accountable for the development, maintenance, and SLA delivery of the technology stack within that domain. You will be working closely with cross-functional teams such as developers, architects, DevOps engineers, designers, customer agent operation team, customer experience team, and data analysts to ensure that the technology stack aligns with the business goals and customer needs.

Responsibilities:

· Develop a deep understanding of the business domain, stakeholders, customers, and market trends.

· Define and prioritize the product backlog based on stakeholder feedback, business goals, and technical feasibility.

· Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure that the product roadmap aligns with business goals and customer needs.

· Provide clear product vision and direction to the development team.

· Ensure that the product is delivered on time, within budget, and with the desired level of quality.

· Work closely with the development team to ensure that the product backlog is well-groomed and ready for development.

· Work with stakeholders to ensure that the product is well-positioned in the market and is meeting the needs of customers.

· Act as a subject matter expert for the product domain and stay up-to-date with market trends, competitors, and emerging technologies.

· Continuously monitor and analyze product performance and make data-driven decisions to improve the product.

· Communicate product updates and progress to stakeholders and cross-functional teams.

· Actively participate in Portfolio management to make sure there is a quarterly planning horizon and alignment with other business domains.

· Prompt and effective response to emergency situations and unforeseen events is an integral part of this role, and the Product Owner is expected to be readily available and accessible when needed.

Requirements:

· Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Business Administration, or a related field.

· At least 5 years of experience as a Product Owner in a fast-paced environment.

· Proven track record of delivering successful products that meet business goals and customer needs.

· Strong functional- and technical background and understanding of customer service technology stacks.

o   F.e. applications as, or similar to, Zendesk, CRM, Babelforce, Chatbot, etc

· Excellent communication and collaboration skills.

· Fluency in English reading, writing and speaking.

· Experience working with agile development methodologies.

· Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and manage multiple priorities.

· Strong problem-solving skills and ability to make data-driven decisions.

· Experience in e-commerce, retail or logistics industry is a plus.

Addendum: Technical Maturity

Technical Maturity: Being aware of and safeguarding the technical quality of your product by emphasizing stability of each deliverable. This is done through responsibly managing the team, setting up a baseline of technical requirements for each deliverable, critical data management, and balancing commercial interests with technical responsibility.

Concretely, Technical Maturity can be boiled down to the following elements:

· Team management

o   Insist on proper documentation for each deliverable

§  Create documentation for new features

§  Update documentation for existing features

· Make proper documentation part of your team culture

o   Assure proper handoff and knowledge transfer when team members change

o   Assure the proper general skills within your team

§  Your developers can read logs in Kibana (or similar applications)

§  Your developers can interpret sensors in PRTG (or similar monitoring applications) related

to their deliverables

§  Your developers understand how to escalate their issues within their domain.

· Technical requirements

o   Your deliverables do not add to the amount of errors and warnings in the error logs

§  If this happens, your deliverables do not meet the desired standard of technical quality

§  If this happens, it is your responsibility as PO to prioritize fixing the underlying cause

o   Put priority on unit testing

§  For new features, unit tests are created before the initial implementation

§  For existing features, unit tests are monitored and updated for each new deliverable relating

to that feature

• Make unit testing part of your acceptance criteria

o   Put priority on integration testing

§  For each deliverable, ask the question if integration testing is applicable

• If so, create integration tests for each new feature

• If so, update and monitor integration tests for each new deliverable relating to that feature

o   Make integration testing part of your acceptance criteria

o   Your deliverables follow clearly structured monitoring procedures

§  For new features, align with your BDS if monitoring should be created

• Document new monitoring

o   The associated sensor

o   The type of monitoring

o   The impact of partial and full down of that monitoring

§  For existing features, align with your BDS if monitoring needs to be updated

• Update the documentation for your monitoring

• Critical data management

o   You take responsibility for the data critical to your product

§  Analyze which data is critical for your product

• Document all the critical data

• Document all the flows relating to the data you consider critical

§  Invest in disaster recovery

• Align on back-up plans with the domains you depend on

o   Ensure that all data back-ups are legally compliant

o   Document your disaster recovery procedures

• Align on back-up plans with external parties that manage your critical data

o   Ensure that all data back-ups are legally compliant

o   Document your disaster recovery procedures

· Managing commercial interests

o   Balance commercial value with technical maturity

§  Make educated decisions on the technical debt that you accept

· Document your technical debt

o   Commit to a clear schedule of cleaning up your technical debt

o   Promote the understanding of the value of technical quality

§  Explain to stakeholders why deliverables may take more time

§  Explain to stakeholders why improving technical stability can take priority over offering new deliverables