Technical Product Owner

Sixty60 Recruitment; Centurion; On-site; ZAR 1,800,000 - 2,400,000; Full time

Job summary

Sixty60 Recruitment seeks a senior leader to own the vision, roadmap and backlog for engineering platforms and AI engineering capabilities, shaping the strategy for tooling and developer enablement across the organisation.

You will drive adoption of DORA metrics, establish productivity baselines, lead toolchain strategy, evaluate build-versus-buy decisions, and partner with software engineering, cloud, infrastructure and security teams to advance platform-as-a-product thinking.

Qualifications

• 8+ years experience across software engineering, platform engineering, DevOps or technology management.
• Proven track record leading engineering platforms or developer tooling.
• Experience as Product Owner, Product Manager or Platform Owner.
• Strong understanding of lifecycle and modern delivery practices.
• Familiar with DevOps, CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code and automation.
• Knowledge of DORA metrics and productivity measurement.
• Experience defining strategies, roadmaps and investments.
• Ability to collaborate across engineering, architecture, cloud and platform teams.
• Focus on measurable outcomes and value realisation.

Responsibilities

• Own the vision, roadmap and backlog for engineering platforms, developer productivity and AI engineering capabilities.
• Shape the strategy for engineering platforms, tooling and developer enablement across the organisation.
• Drive adoption of DORA metrics, engineering KPIs and value measurement frameworks.
• Establish productivity baselines and measurable improvement targets.
• Lead engineering toolchain strategy, optimisation and rationalisation.
• Evaluate build-versus-buy decisions and develop business cases for platform investments.
• Drive adoption and governance of AI-assisted software engineering capabilities.
• Define how AI engineering utilisation, productivity and ROI are measured.
• Partner with Software Engineering, Enterprise Architecture, Cloud, Infrastructure and Security teams.
• Promote platform-as-a-product thinking and improve adoption of engineering standards and capabilities.
• Support strategic technology investment, vendor and platform decisions.

Skills

8+ years experience

Platform ownership

DevOps

CI/CD

DORA metrics

AI in software

Product ownership

Stakeholder influence

Tools

IaC

Observability

APIs

Job description

Key Responsibilities:

• Own the vision, roadmap and backlog for engineering platforms, developer productivity and AI engineering capabilities.
• Shape the strategy for engineering platforms, tooling and developer enablement across the organisation.
• Drive adoption of DORA metrics, engineering KPIs and value measurement frameworks.
• Establish productivity baselines and measurable improvement targets.
• Lead engineering toolchain strategy, optimisation and rationalisation.
• Evaluate build-versus-buy decisions and develop business cases for platform investments.
• Drive adoption and governance of AI-assisted software engineering capabilities.
• Define how AI engineering utilisation, productivity and ROI are measured.
• Partner with Software Engineering, Enterprise Architecture, Cloud, Infrastructure and Security teams.
• Promote platform-as-a-product thinking and improve adoption of engineering standards and capabilities.
• Support strategic technology investment, vendor and platform decisions.

Minimum Requirements:

• 8+ years' experience across Software Engineering, Platform Engineering, DevOps, Technology Management or related disciplines.
• Proven experience leading engineering platforms, developer tooling or enterprise technology capabilities.
• Experience operating as a Product Owner, Product Manager or Platform Owner.
• Strong understanding of the software engineering lifecycle and modern engineering delivery practices.
• Experience with DevOps, CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code and engineering automation.
• Understanding of DORA metrics, engineering performance and developer productivity measurement.
• Experience defining technology strategies, roadmaps and investment priorities.
• Ability to work effectively across Engineering, Architecture, Cloud and Platform teams.
• Strong product ownership skills with a focus on measurable outcomes and value realisation.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with AI-assisted software development and AI coding platforms.
• Platform Engineering, DevOps, Cloud or AI certifications.
• Product Owner certification such as SAFe POPM, PSPO or CSPO.
• Experience with API management, engineering observability, repository strategies and value stream management.

How You Work:

• Strategic and technically credible.
• Outcome- and value-driven.
• Comfortable operating across both executive and engineering audiences.
• Strong stakeholder influencer who can align multiple technology teams.
• Commercially aware and confident making investment and prioritisation decisions.
• Evidence-led, curious and focused on continuous improvement.
• Passionate about improving the developer experience and engineering excellence.

Please note: If you do not hear back from us within 2 weeks, please consider your application unsuccessful.