Product Owner

\We are looking for an experienced Product Owner to define product requirements, manage and prioritize the product backlog, and ensure the successful delivery of business-driven product features. The ideal candidate will collaborate closely with business stakeholders, customers, developers, QA engineers, technical leads, Scrum Masters, and project management teams to translate business objectives into clear, actionable requirements.

The candidate should have strong analytical and stakeholder management skills, hands-on experience with Agile methodologies and Scrum practices, and practical experience using Azure DevOps or similar work management tools. The role requires a strong focus on backlog readiness, requirement traceability, sprint execution, user acceptance testing (UAT), and maximizing product value.

Key Responsibilities

1. Product Vision and Requirement Management

• Understand business objectives, customer needs, product vision, and strategic priorities.
• Gather, analyze, validate, and document business and functional requirements.
• Translate requirements into epics, features, user stories, and measurable acceptance criteria.
• Maintain requirement traceability throughout development, testing, and release cycles.
• Identify requirement gaps, assumptions, dependencies, and potential delivery risks.
• Conduct requirement-gathering workshops, stakeholder meetings, and clarification sessions.
• Maintain and communicate product roadmaps, priorities, and requirement updates.

2. Product Backlog Management

• Own, maintain, refine, and prioritize the product backlog based on business value, customer needs, dependencies, risks, and delivery capacity.
• Create and manage epics, features, user stories, and tasks using Azure DevOps or similar tools.
• Ensure backlog items meet the team's Definition of Ready (DoR) before sprint planning.
• Break down complex requirements into smaller, actionable, and deliverable user stories.
• Collaborate with technical leads and developers to evaluate technical feasibility and implementation options.
• Ensure backlog quality, completeness, clarity, and readiness for upcoming sprints.
• Manage scope changes and communicate their impact on priorities, timelines, and delivery commitments.

3. Agile Delivery and Sprint Execution

• Participate in sprint planning, backlog refinement, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.
• Collaborate with Scrum Masters, Project Managers, developers, and QA teams to ensure predictable delivery.
• Provide timely clarification of business requirements and resolve functional queries during development.
• Monitor sprint progress and help resolve requirement-related blockers.
• Ensure development teams understand business value, expected outcomes, and acceptance criteria.
• Coordinate with QA engineers to align test scenarios with business requirements.
• Support release planning, feature validation, and stakeholder communication.

4. Stakeholder and Customer Management

• Act as the primary point of contact for product requirements, backlog prioritization, and functional clarifications.
• Build strong relationships with customers, business users, technical teams, and senior management.
• Communicate product priorities, scope changes, dependencies, risks, and delivery expectations.
• Facilitate discussions and resolve conflicts arising from competing stakeholder requirements.
• Collect customer feedback and incorporate insights into product enhancements and backlog refinement.
• Set clear expectations regarding the business impact and delivery implications of requested changes.

5. Acceptance Testing and Release Readiness

• Define clear, testable, and measurable acceptance criteria for features and user stories.
• Validate completed functionality against agreed requirements and business expectations.
• Coordinate User Acceptance Testing (UAT) with business stakeholders and end users.
• Document, prioritize, and track defects, gaps, and requirement deviations.
• Obtain formal business acceptance and sign-off from authorized stakeholders.
• Support release readiness reviews, release notes, and post-release feedback collection.
• Ensure delivered features meet agreed quality standards and business acceptance criteria.

6. Reporting and Continuous Improvement

• Maintain visibility into product backlog status, sprint goals, feature progress, dependencies, and pending decisions.
• Use Azure DevOps dashboards, queries, and work-item tracking to monitor delivery progress, blockers, and defects.
• Track product and delivery metrics, including backlog readiness, acceptance rates, defect trends, and sprint goal achievement.
• Identify opportunities to improve requirement quality, product delivery, and stakeholder collaboration.
• Contribute to continuous improvement through sprint retrospectives, stakeholder feedback, and data-driven prioritization.

Required Skills and Qualifications

• 8 - 10 years of relevant experience in Product Ownership, Business Analysis, Product Management, or Agile Delivery.
• Strong hands-on experience in Agile methodologies, Scrum frameworks, and product backlog management.
• Practical experience with Azure DevOps, Jira, or similar work management tools.
• Expertise in writing epics, features, user stories, functional requirements, and acceptance criteria.
• Experience in backlog refinement, sprint planning, release planning, and requirement traceability.
• Strong understanding of SDLC, software development processes, QA, and UAT.
• Proven experience managing stakeholders, gathering requirements, and resolving conflicting priorities.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, documentation, and decision-making skills.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional and distributed teams.