Lead Product Owner

FindIT Recruitment; Auckland; On-site; NZD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

FindIT Recruitment in Auckland seeks an experienced Product Owner to lead a cross-functional squad in a regulated, customer-facing environment. You will own the backlog, prioritize work, and drive AI-accelerated delivery from discovery to value delivery, with a close partnership to the Lead Software Engineer for feasibility and handover to BAU.

The role requires 7+ years in product ownership or senior business analysis, strong stakeholder management, and proven Agile delivery experience.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in product ownership or senior business analysis leading delivery teams.
• End-to-end ownership from discovery to adoption and benefits realization.
• Strong stakeholder management with credibility for senior audiences.
• Ability to engage with engineers on feasibility and risk.
• Experience with AI-accelerated development and rapid prototyping.
• Agile delivery experience (Scrum/Kanban) with backlog ownership.

Responsibilities

• Shape and maintain squad roadmap and priorities, matching work to capacity and skills.
• Own the backlog: elicit requirements, write user stories and acceptance criteria for AI-enabled delivery.
• Accept or reject completed work against definitions of done.
• Line-manage squad members in partnership with the Squad Tech Lead.
• Act as the squad's voice to business stakeholders on priorities and progress.
• Support UAT and business change through training, documentation and handover.

Skills

Product ownership

Backlog management

Stakeholder management

Technical literacy

Agile delivery

Job description

FindIT Recruitment – Auckland, North Island

Our client, a well-established and high-profile New Zealand organisation operating in a highly regulated, customer-facing industry, is looking for an experienced Product Owner to join their Technology team in Auckland.

Both Contractors and Permanent candidates will be considered.

The Role

As Product Owner, you'll lead a cross-functional development squad of 5-7 people, owning how the squad's committed work is shaped, sequenced and delivered. You'll own the backlog outright - eliciting requirements, writing user stories, and matching work to your squad's capacity - while working in close partnership with your Lead Software Engineer (Squad Tech Lead), who owns technical integrity and feasibility. Direction on what's taken into the squad sits with senior technology leadership; you'll own everything from there through to value delivered and handover into business-as-usual operation.

This is a genuinely AI-accelerated delivery environment, where working software emerges quickly and iteration is cheap - so the ability to exploit that pace through rapid prototyping and short feedback loops will set you apart.

Key Responsibilities

• Shape and maintain your squad's roadmap and priorities, matching committed work to capacity and skills
• Own the backlog outright: elicit and analyse requirements, write user stories and acceptance criteria precise enough to drive AI-accelerated delivery
• Accept or reject completed work against agreed definitions of done
• Line-manage squad members - engagement, development and performance - in partnership with your Squad Tech Lead
• Act as the squad's single voice to business stakeholders on priorities, progress and trade-offs
• Support user acceptance testing and business change through training, documentation and process handover

About You

• 7+ years' experience in product ownership, product management or senior business analysis, including leading delivery teams
• Demonstrated ability to own a product domain end-to-end: discovery, requirements, prioritisation, delivery, adoption and benefits realisation
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to negotiate priorities and communicate trade-offs credibly to senior audiences
• Working technical literacy - you don't need to code, but you do need to engage credibly with engineers on feasibility and risk
• Solid understanding of AI-assisted/AI-accelerated development and the judgement to exploit its pace
• Agile delivery experience (Scrum, Kanban or similar) with full backlog ownership
• Experience in a highly regulated industry (e.g. banking, financial services or healthcare) would be an advantage
• Excellent written and verbal communication, and genuine enthusiasm for new ways of working