Product Owner (SC Active is mandatory)

GCS Recruitment; United States; Remote; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

GCS Recruitment Specialists seeks a Product Manager to translate feature requests into a roadmap, review backlogs, and craft clear user stories and acceptance criteria. You will set sprint goals and plan releases to deliver iterative value.

The role requires tracking progress, addressing production issues during sprints, analysing end-user demands, and refining agile practices based on client feedback and industry trends. This is a hands-on product role with a delivery focus.

Qualifications

• Experience turning feature requests into a product roadmap.
• Ability to review and prioritise backlog.
• Develop user stories and define acceptance criteria.
• Plan releases and upgrades.
• Write acceptance tests.

Responsibilities

• Follow progress of work and address production issues during sprints.
• Analyse preferences and requests of end users.
• Refine agile methodology based on results and client feedback.
• Keep track of industry trends.
• Maintain and communicate product management standards.

Skills

Roadmap ownership

Backlog prioritisation

User stories

Acceptance criteria

Sprint planning

Release planning

Issue resolution

Stakeholder comms

Industry awareness

Job description

Prefered candidate from public sector such as Home Office, Defra, FCDO, MOJ, MOD, Cabinet Office, Centeral Gov bodies. SC Active or recently lapsed would be preferred.

Principal Accountabilities

1. Incorporate feature requests into a product roadmap
2. Review and prioritise backlog
3. Develop user stories and define acceptance criteria
4. Set sprint goals
5. Write acceptance tests
6. Plan releases and upgrades
7. Follow progress of work and address production issues during sprints
8. Analyse preferences and requests of end users
9. Refine our agile methodology based on results and client feedback
10. Keep track of industry trends

Complexity, Planning And Time Spans

• Management of own workload and time.
• Coordinating delivery dates
• Tracking and monitoring of Development work
• Reviewing, collating, maintaining and highlighting changes to agreed feature requests
• Identifying, assessing and reporting product risks and issues, engaging with internal and external contacts where necessary
• Maintaining financial controls and systems for recording, monitoring, forecasting and budgeting development expenditure and resources
• Organising and facilitating release closures, as well as ensuring release notes and user guides are available at release
• Maintaining and communicating product management standards and best practices
• Assisting in the maintenance, reviewing, and improving of departmental and product management office policies and procedures
• Producing weekly and monthly performance/status reports for the IT SLT and Stakeholders

Difficulties And Demands Of The Role

• Balancing the changing demands of the business
• Ensuring all elements of the product development are aligned to meet tight and demanding deadlines.
• Understanding and keeping on top of all the work that is going on across the business to ensure all work is aligned and doesn't' conflict.
• Strong organisation skills and management of time and information gathering skills.
• Clear understanding of the systems and a clear understanding of what needs to be delivered.

Typical Decisions Made By The Jobholder

• How best to implement a request and what impact it has on delivery.
• How to prioritise and weigh demands of requests from business based on impact and urgency.
• When a serious issue will delay the product release significantly or increase costs
• Where a major change in approach needs to be followed that will impact other teams working

Facts And Figures

Detail the main variables against which the role will be measured. These variables can include sales targets, costs, profits, turnover, etc.

Success will be measured successful by continued product development completed on time and on budget.

Principal Measures

• Quality of project and request completion
• Delivery of client agreed commitments
• Uptake of IT developments within the business.
• Amount of Re-work IT Development that needs to be undertook.

GCS is acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy.