Product Owner

Network Finance; Gauteng; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Job summary

Network Finance is seeking a product/delivery leader in Gauteng to own a focused feature from concept to production. You will work with stakeholders, clients, users, and the development team to define outcomes and translate needs into clear development requirements.

You’ll write specs, user stories, and acceptance criteria, collaborate with the CTO and senior developers for architectural input, maintain the backlog, and drive delivery with the team through planning, testing, and releases.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree with product or project development experience.
• 5 years’ insurance or financial services knowledge.
• 3 years’ management or delivery leadership experience.
• Ability to write clear requirements, specifications and acceptance criteria.
• Ability to manage a small team and day-to-day delivery.
• Ability to test software against requirements and decide release readiness.

Responsibilities

• Own the delivery of a focused product feature from concept through to production.
• Collaborate with stakeholders, clients, users and development team to define outcomes.
• Research user needs, gather feedback, translate into development requirements.
• Write specs, user stories, acceptance criteria, and supporting docs.
• Work with CTO and senior developers for architectural guidance.
• Create and maintain the backlog for the feature area and prioritise work.
• Map project dependencies and sequence development.
• Coordinate day-to-day activities of the feature’s development team.
• Provide formal line management for the developers.
• Coordinate sprint planning, progress tracking, and release prep.
• Ensure requirements and priorities are understood by developers.
• Execute QA testing and coordinate testing before handover.
• Review completed work against requirements and acceptance criteria.
• Provide QA sign-off before release to production.

Skills

Product delivery

Stakeholder management

Requirements writing

Team leadership

Delivery planning

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent

Job description

Key Responsibilities:

• Own the delivery of a focused product feature from concept through to production.
• Work with internal stakeholders, clients, users, business representatives, and the development team to understand requirements and define the expected outcome.
• Research user needs, investigate problems, gather feedback, and translate this into clear development requirements.
• Write specifications, user stories, acceptance criteria, and supporting documentation for the development team.
• Work with the CTO and senior developers where technical input, feasibility checks, or architectural guidance is required.
• Create and maintain the backlog for the feature area, prioritising work based on business objectives, user needs, and delivery constraints.
• Map out project dependencies and help define the correct sequence of development.
• Manage the day-to-day coordination of the development team assigned to the feature.
• Provide formal line management for the developers reporting into this focused team.
• Coordinate development activities, sprint planning, progress tracking, and release preparation.
• Ensure developers understand the requirements, priorities, and expected deliverables.
• Execute QA testing and coordinate developers to test and verify their own work before handover.
• Review completed development work against the agreed requirements and acceptance criteria.
• Provide QA sign-off before work is released to production.

Job Experience and Skills Required:

• Bachelor’s degree and product or project development experience, or equivalent qualification and experience.
• 5 years’ insurance or financial services knowledge.
• 3 years’ experience in a management, team lead, product, project, or delivery role.
• Ability to work with developers, business stakeholders, clients, and users.
• Ability to write clear requirements, specifications, and acceptance criteria.
• Ability to manage a small team and take ownership of day-to-day delivery.
• Ability to test software against requirements and make practical release-readiness decisions.