Technical Product Owner - API Specialist

Emirates; Dubai Emirate; On-site; AED 260,000 - 460,000; Full time

Job summary

Emirates Group IT seeks a Technical Product Owner - API Specialist to drive API-first product strategies across Digital, Airline, and Airport Operations domains. You will lead multiple product teams, manage backlogs, and ensure alignment with business goals while delivering value to customers.

Join our Dubai-based team to shape API platforms, developer experience, and governance in a fast-paced, technology-driven environment. Experience with SAFe and API ecosystems is highly valued.

Qualifications

• Degree in IT with honours or equivalent.
• 5+ years in IT, including 2+ years as Product Owner/Manager.
• Experience with API-first products and scaled agile practices (SAFe/PSPO) is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Own story content, acceptance criteria, and sign-off across team backlogs.
• Capture non-functional requirements and technical debt for all sprints.
• Prepare PI demo contributions with other Product Owners.
• Maintain risk and dependency visibility back to the Portfolio backlog.
• Attend Product Management meetings and PI Planning sessions.
• Define metrics to measure success and prioritise BAU iterations accordingly.
• Foster a community of Product Owners and drive process improvements.
• Collaborate to capture team-driven innovation ideas for the TPM community.

Skills

API design

API lifecycle

REST APIs

OpenAPI

Event-driven

CI/CD

GitLab CI

Docker

Terraform

Ansible

Kong API Gateway

API governance

Security by design

Developer Experience

Education

Degree in IT

Tools

GitLab CI

Artifactory

Nexus

Docker

Terraform

Ansible

Job description

Job Purpose

At Emirates, we believe in connecting the world, to and through, our global hub in Dubai; and in constantly innovating to ensure our customers ‘Fly Better’. Emirates Group IT thrives on the dynamic nature of technology. Being pioneers in aviation innovation, we're always at the forefront, pushing boundaries. We're on the lookout for exceptional IT professionals to fortify our position as leaders in the industry. Embark on a journey with the world’s largest international airline and become a vital part of our cutting-edge information and technology team as Technical Product Owner - API Specialist. Join our Technical Product Management team, where we build effective technology products and services that our customers love. We offer a mix of B2B and B2C products and services in domains such as Digital, Airline and Airport Operations, Group Services, and Commercial. Our goal is to continuously evolve our products, enriching them with features that focus on delivering value to our customers and users.

The Technical Product Owners (TPO) are the front door to multiple product engineering teams, owning the backlogs of work spread across features, functional, non-functional (NFR), BAU, Technical Debt, spikes, and ceremonies. Leading and empowering their teams, the TPO acts as a voice of the customer, partnering with business counterparts to lead the lifecycle for designated technology products and the underlying applications in their domain. They are accountable for enabling the business to achieve their objectives & strategic outcomes from concept through to operations.

In This Role, You Will

• Be responsible for the story content, acceptance criteria definition, and end story \"sign off\" across team backlogs, ensuring user stories are prepared on time for future PI's, refined frequently with the entire team, and prioritised accordingly in alignment with other team backlogs.


• Ensure Technical Debt and non-functional requirements are captured, refined, and prioritised across all sprints.


• Capture additional BAU, Ceremony, and Spike activities, and incorporate into team backlogs, within the boundaries of available capacity.


• Prepare contribution to PI demo, in conjunction with other applicable Product Owners.


• Maintain the quality and integrity of features within their technical and team boundaries, ensuring identification and contribution of risks and dependencies back to the Product Portfolio backlog.


• Attend and contribute to key Product Management meetings, in particular PI Planning.


• Define metrics to measure the success and performance of prioritised work, ensuring any further BAU iterations can be proposed and prioritised accordingly within the boundaries of available capacity.


• Participate in establishing and growing a community of Product Owners, building an identity for the role, focus upon collaboration, and identifying opportunities for improvement and growth.


• Contribute to the Product Management Communities and their continual evolution to help drive efficient practices and empowered teams.


• Be working with your team(s) to identify and capture team driven innovation ideas, consolidating across peer group for playback up to TPM (Technical Product Manager) community.

Qualification

• Degree or Honours (12+3) in IT.


• 5+ years of total experience in Information Technology including 2+ years practical experience of working as a Product Owner/Manager, in a team facing capacity, with proven record of driving discernible change and delivery, at pace.

Knowledge/Skills

• Operations Research, Marketing science, Information Systems, e-Commerce or a combination of industry certification.


• Global Product (CSPO/SAFe/PSPO) trained and certified.


• Whilst not essential, some experience of working within a Scaled Agile framework, across multiple initiatives and circa 50+ teams.


• Demonstrated technical or domain expertise, utilising a depth and breadth of knowledge and practical experience within the specific domain or technical area. Stays up to date with regulatory and other changes in the technical area, and understands how they apply to the Emirates group.


• Well-versed with the tools for the Product Management aspects of software delivery.


• Strong and concise communicator at peer, line, and stakeholder levels.


• Builds strong relationships with peers and team members.


• Appetite for building and identifying value, with a customer centric mind-set.


• Strong understanding of:
  
  
  
  • API-first & API-as-a-Product concepts
  
  
  • REST / Async APIs, OpenAPI, event-driven patterns
  
  
  
  


• API lifecycle: master all the API Stage to ensure governance


• Familiarity with:
  
  
  
  • API Gateways & platforms (Kong API Gateway is a Nice to Have)
  
  
  • Developer Portals & API catalogues: familiar with API Developer Experience
  
  
  • CI/CD, automation, and platform engineering concepts : Gitlab CI / Artifactory/Nexus/Docker/Terraform/Ansible
  
  
  
  


• Solid grasp of API Security by Design principles: OWASP10-2025


• Have experience contributing to an API program on a large scale.

Leadership role: Yes

Salary & benefits

Join us in Dubai and enjoy an attractive tax-free salary and travel benefits that are exclusive to our industry, including discounts on flights and hotels stays around the world. Find out what it’s like to live and work in our fast-paced, cosmopolitan home city in the Dubai Lifestyle section of our website www.emirates.com/careers.