Product Owner - Software Focused

Computer Futures / SThree Group; Coventry; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading technology firm is seeking an experienced Product Owner to lead mobile and web product development. The role involves collaboration with cross-functional Agile teams to drive product strategy and align deliverables with user-centric designs. The ideal candidate will have strong UX instincts, experience in requirements analysis, and excellent communication skills. This position focuses primarily on software products within warehousing and field service operations, ensuring high-quality product features are delivered consistently.

Qualifications

• Experience as a Product Owner or similar roles within Agile software development.
• Demonstrable ability to design user journeys and strong UX instincts.
• Proven strength in requirements analysis and solution design.

Responsibilities

• Lead the product strategy and evolution of mobile and web applications.
• Define product outcomes, requirements, and prioritize roadmaps.
• Act as Product Owner for Agile squads and manage the product backlog.

Skills

Experience as a Product Owner

Strong UX instincts

Requirements analysis

Communication skills

Ability to design high-quality user journeys

Tools

React

Node.js

SQL

Job description

Role Summary

We’re seeking an experienced Product Owner with a strong software product background to lead the evolution of a suite of mobile, web, and client applications. You’ll collaborate closely with stakeholders, architects, and cross‑functional Agile teams to define clear product outcomes, craft user‑centric requirements, and ship high‑quality, scalable features. While the domain includes warehousing and field service operations, this role is primarily software‑focused: product strategy, UX, integration, platform architecture, quality, and data‑driven decision‑making.

What You’ll Do

Product Strategy & Discovery

• Partner with stakeholders to understand customer problems and map end‑to‑end user journeys across mobile, web, and client apps.
• Translate insights into prioritised product roadmaps, release plans, and measurable outcomes (OKRs/KPIs).
• Drive discovery activities (user research, hypothesis framing, spikes, proofs‑of‑concept) and validate solutions through iterative experimentation.

Requirements & Design

• Convert business and technical needs into well‑formed epics, features, and user stories with clear acceptance criteria.
• Apply UX principles to define intuitive workflows and interfaces; produce wireframes and low‑fi mockups to align teams quickly.
• Collaborate with architects on solution design: API contracts, data models, event flows, and non‑functional requirements (security, performance, scalability).

Agile Delivery & Backlog Ownership

• Act as Product Owner for one or more Agile squads, owning the product backlog, grooming regularly, and ensuring clarity and priority.
• Provide day‑to‑day guidance on requirements, edge cases, and dependencies; unblock teams swiftly and reduce ambiguity.
• Participate in increment planning, sprint planning, stand‑ups, reviews, and retrospectives; ensure commitments tie to outcomes.

Quality, Testing & Release Readiness

• Champion quality from the start, collaborating with QA/engineers to define Acceptance Criteria and Acceptance Tests (BDD).
• Support automated testing strategies (unit, integration, contract, end‑to‑end), test data readiness, and release validation.
• Ensure features meet accessibility and performance standards, and are instrumented for observability (logging, metrics, tracing).

Platform & Integration

• Work with engineering on API‑first design, reliable integrations (e.g., EDI/REST/GraphQL), and data interoperability.
• Support the evolution of platform capabilities across identity/auth, role‑based access, configuration, and tenancy models.
• Align delivery with DevOps/CI‑CD practices, feature flags, rollout strategies, and secure‑by‑default principles.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Communicate product vision and progress clearly to business partners and senior stakeholders; run demos and gather feedback.
• Where needed, engage directly with customers to lead discovery sessions and validate solutions.
• Ensure all deliverables align with brand and UX guidelines, and maintain consistent standards across products.

Key Outcomes (First 6‑12 Months)

• A clear, outcomes‑led product roadmap for core applications and platform capabilities.
• Consistently shippable increments with traceable value (e.g., reduced cycle time, improved NPS/CSAT, lower support tickets).
• Improved requirements quality, with fewer rework cycles and stronger alignment between UX, engineering, and QA.
• Robust acceptance testing and automation coverage for new features; measurable uptick in release confidence.
• Well‑defined API and data contracts that simplify integrations and reduce friction for downstream systems.

Required Skills & Experience (Software‑Focused)

• Experience as a Product Owner (or similar: Product Analyst, Product Designer) within Agile software development teams.
• Demonstrable ability to design high‑quality user journeys, with strong UX instincts and practical wireframing skills.
• Proven strength in requirements analysis and solution design, including acceptance criteria and edge‑case handling.
• Experience with process mapping and optimisation; able to simplify complex workflows into intuitive product experiences.
• Confidence working across API design, data models, and integration patterns (e.g., EDI, REST, event‑driven).
• Excellent communication skills; able to align distributed teams and present to senior stakeholders.
• Hands‑on collaboration with QA on BDD, acceptance tests, and release readiness.
• Self‑directed, detail‑oriented, and outcomes‑driven.

Desirable Skills & Tools

• Exposure to software architectures: microservices, event‑driven systems, multi‑tenancy, and secure authentication/authorisation.
• Familiarity with modern stacks (examples only; not mandatory):
  • Frontend: React, Angular, Vue; design systems and component libraries
  • Mobile: React Native, Flutter, native iOS/Android
  • Backend: Node.js, .NET, Java (Spring), Python
  • APIs & Messaging: REST/GraphQL, gRPC, Kafka/RabbitMQ
  • Data: SQL/NoSQL, data modelling, analytics/observability
  • DevOps: CI/CD pipelines, containers (Docker/K8s), IaC (Terraform), feature flags
  • Testing: BDD (Cucumber/SpecFlow), contract testing (Pact), automation frameworks
• Experience with WMS/FSL concepts is helpful, but the emphasis is on software product delivery.
• Experience working remotely with cross‑functional teams and driving alignment across time zones.