Product Owner

Cedar; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 45,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

Cedar in Manchester is seeking a Product Owner to translate strategy into deliverable work. You will link customers, stakeholders and the development team to ensure value and safety in digital products.

As part of a cross‑functional team, you will own backlog priorities, write clear user stories and acceptance criteria, and drive delivery decisions to optimise outcomes for users and the business.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in product ownership or product delivery within an agile software environment.
• Strong backlog management, prioritisation, requirements gathering and user stories skills.
• Ability to make timely product decisions and manage competing priorities.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences.
• Working understanding of software development, testing and release processes.
• Confidence using Jira or an equivalent product-delivery platform.

Responsibilities

• Translate agreed product strategy and roadmap into a clear, prioritised and deliverable backlog.
• Own, maintain and prioritise the product backlog for the development team.
• Gather and validate business and user needs and translate them into Jira tickets, user stories, requirements and acceptance criteria.
• Work closely with design, engineering, QA and stakeholders to ensure solutions meet objectives and acceptance criteria.
• Provide timely clarification, make product scope decisions and manage trade‑offs during delivery.
• Prepare prioritised work for refinement and provide context, requirements and decisions needed for the team.
• Participate in stand‑ups and delivery discussions to clarify product questions and blockers.
• Review completed work against requirements and acceptance criteria, ensuring evidence is available.
• Support release readiness and communicate product decisions to stakeholders.
• Build relationships with customers, users and internal teams to gather needs and communicate decisions.
• Bring customer and market insights into prioritisation and product decisions.
• Contribute to product performance and look for opportunities for improvement.
• Support product demonstrations, release notes and training when required.

Skills

Backlog management

Prioritisation

Requirements gathering

User stories

Stakeholder management

Communication

Agile

Product decisions

Tools

Jira

Job description

Our client is a growing organisation focused on developing digital products that enable people and organisations to make better-informed decisions and improve outcomes.

The Product Owner translates agreed product strategy and roadmap into a clear, prioritised and deliverable body of work. Acting as the link between customers, stakeholders and the development team, the role ensures that the problem, expected value, required scope and measures of success are clearly understood.

Working closely with product, engineering, QA, design, clinical/safety and delivery colleagues, the Product Owner provides the product direction and decisions needed to deliver valuable, safe and user-centred solutions.

Key Responsibilities

Product Owner

Manchester (Hybrid 3 days on site)

ASAP Start

Context & Purpose

Our client is a growing organisation focused on developing digital products that enable people and organisations to make better-informed decisions and improve outcomes.

The Product Owner translates agreed product strategy and roadmap into a clear, prioritised and deliverable body of work. Acting as the link between customers, stakeholders and the development team, the role ensures that the problem, expected value, required scope and measures of success are clearly understood.

Working closely with product, engineering, QA, design, clinical/safety and delivery colleagues, the Product Owner provides the product direction and decisions needed to deliver valuable, safe and user-centred solutions.

Key Responsibilities

• Product Direction & Prioritisation: Work with product leadership to translate product vision, roadmap and agreed outcomes into clear and achievable priorities.
• Backlog Management: Own, maintain and prioritise the product backlog, ensuring a consistent flow of appropriately prepared work for the development team.
• Requirements & User Stories: Gather and validate business and user needs and translate them into clear Jira tickets, user stories, requirements and acceptance criteria.
• Product Design: Work closely with design, technical teams and stakeholders to ensure solutions meet agreed objectives and acceptance criteria.
• Product Decisions: Provide timely clarification, make product scope decisions and manage trade-offs during delivery, escalating material strategic or investment decisions where appropriate.
• Backlog Readiness & Refinement: Prepare prioritised work for refinement and provide the product context, requirements, acceptance criteria and decisions needed for the development team to understand the intended outcome.
• Daily Collaboration: Participate in stand‑ups and delivery discussions where product clarification, priority decisions or blocker resolution is required.
• Sprint Reviews & Product Acceptance: Review completed work, gather feedback and assess work against agreed requirements and acceptance criteria, ensuring necessary evidence is available and documented.
• Release & Launch Readiness: Support delivery by clarifying intended product scope, acceptance status, known limitations and likely customer impact, and provide product input into release readiness and go/no‑go decisions.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Build effective relationships with customers, users, commercial teams, support functions and internal stakeholders to gather needs, validate solutions and communicate product decisions.
• Customer & Market Insight: Bring customer feedback, user research, operational insight, market evidence and product data into prioritisation and product decisions.
• Product Performance: Contribute to product success measures and use customer, usage and operational insight to identify opportunities for improvement.
• Product Communication & Enablement: Support product demonstrations, release notes, training, launch activity and stakeholder communications where product context is required.
• Governance & Compliance: Ensure relevant safety, regulatory, privacy, security and interoperability considerations are identified and the appropriate specialists are engaged.
• Documentation: Maintain clear and traceable product requirements, decisions and acceptance outcomes in agreed systems of record.

Skills, Knowledge & Experience

Essential

• Proven experience in product ownership or product delivery within an agile software environment.
• Strong backlog management, prioritisation, requirements gathering and user stories skills.
• Practical experience preparing work for backlog refinement and completing product reviews and acceptance.
• Ability to make timely product decisions, manage competing priorities and communicate trade‑offs clearly.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills across technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Ability to use customer, market and product evidence to inform decisions.
• Working understanding of software development, testing and release processes.
• Confidence using Jira or an equivalent product‑delivery platform.

Desirable

• Experience within HealthTech, healthcare services or regulated software environments.
• Awareness of clinical safety, information governance, GDPR, interoperability and relevant regulation.
• Experience of product analytics, customer research, experimentation or user testing.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate is organised, pragmatic and customer‑focused, with the confidence to make clear product decisions and challenge constructively.

You will be comfortable working across commercial, technical, safety and operational teams and will be motivated by delivering meaningful improvements for customers and users.