Lead Product Owner
Summary
Product Owner in Auckland leading a 5-7 person cross-functional squad: owns the backlog end to end (requirements, user stories, prioritisation, delivery acceptance) in an AI-accelerated delivery environment, line-manages squad members with the Tech Lead, and communicates priorities and trade-offs to senior stakeholders.
About the Opportunity
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
If this sounds like your next move, apply now or get in touch for a confidential conversation.
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
If this sounds like your next move, apply now or get in touch for a confidential conversation.