Product Owner

Our client is a prestigious European institution that strives to unlock the potential of data, boost digital infrastructure and connectivity, and promote digital skills across the European Union.

The selected candidate for this role will be joining a smart middleware European project that will enable cloud-to-edge federations and support all major data initiatives funded by the Institution, such as common European data spaces.

The role of the institution is to offer the product freely as an open-source tool, benefiting both public and private sectors, and ultimately serving European citizens. And make available open testing environments for stakeholders, among other important responsibilities.

We are now seeking an experienced Product Owner to take charge with a proven ability to operate effectively in demanding environments.

Contract type: Freelancer agreement, with an initial contract duration, with the possibility for renewal

Workplace type: Hybrid with 2 - 3 days a week of office presence at the client's premises in Brussels.

Key Responsibilities:

• Work within the agile process and make decisions regarding priority, business value, and functionality for all the work done by the agile development team.

• Typically supervise several business analysts.

• Possess an in-depth knowledge of the goals and desired objectives of the project.

• Interact and validate requirements with the business.

• Propose solutions by combining IT tools and business process refactoring or improvements based on an in-depth understanding of a specific business domain.

• Be involved in the decision-making process related to user stories scheduling into sprints.

• Review deliverable and demonstrable product version/software functionalities after every sprint.

• Organize a live demonstration of the product at the end of the sprint.

• Evaluate and facilitate progress reporting.

• Assist with internal and external communication by improving of transparency and dissemination of information.

• Evaluate prioritization and resolution of defects/bugs.

• Interact with business analysts, customers, users, project leaders, and the developers.

Key Knowledge, Skills, and Expertise:

• Ability to work in a proactive manner and adapt to changing requirements efficiently and fast.

• Ability to give business and technical presentations.

• Ability to apply high-quality standards.

• Ability to cope with fast-changing technologies used on the project.

• Excellent communication skills with technical and non-technical audiences.

• Analysis and problem-solving skills.

• Capability to write clear and structured technical documents.

• Ability to participate in technical meetings and excellent communication skills.

• Master’s degree combined with relevant IT professional experience of at least 10 years.

• Multi-annual experience with large, enterprise-level multi-user Information Systems.

• Multi-annual experience in Agile as well as agile toolbox (i.e., JIRA, Confluence, Big Picture, Gliffy, Balsamiq, etc.).

• Excellent Knowledge of Application Management Lifecycle.

• Good Knowledge of enterprise architecture frameworks such as TOGAF, COBIT, Zachman, and actual experience developing and building models based on such frameworks.

• Excellent leadership, conciliation, and negotiation skills.

• The ability to work in a proactive and independent manner, with a focus on priorities, communication, and decision-making capacities.

• Excellent command of English – at least C1 level

• Any of the following certificates will be an advantage for this role: Scrum Product Owner (CSPO); Project Management Professional (PMP); PRINCE2 Foundation; Certified in PM2; ITIL v4 certification