Product Owner

**Product Owner (Cape Town CBD)**
We are looking for an intelligent and creative individual to join the Intelligent Debt Management (IDM) team. IDM is growing quickly and needs a **Product Owner **to drive the development pipeline of our credit platforms and digital ecosystem. This individual will be responsible for the strategic and practical management of our platforms as they evolve and become an industry leader in the fintech space.

IDM is the leader in the South African debt management industry and is an expert in providing financial solutions to South Africans and empowering them to manage their credit better. IDM was founded in 2004 as a home loan advice business and has evolved into a group which includes the largest debt counsellor in the country (DebtBusters), one of the country’s most recognized financial advice brands (JustMoney), a large credit bureau reseller which issues over a million credit reports a month through large partnerships with the likes of Shoprite and Old Mutual (Kudough) and a platform JV with Sanlam which has been the fastest growing area within the Sanlam group for the past 3 years (Sanlam Credit Solutions).

Since 2018 IDM has leveraged its data and technology expertise to build, operate and optimize credit platforms and microservices for its partners. The key to this has been to put consumers at the centre of digital journeys and build what works for them. We have seen significant success in building an active userbase of over 2.5 million users, driving real value for both the users and partnering businesses.

**What does IDM offer its employees**:

- Hybrid (onsite and remote) work environment
- Competitive packages, including medical and RA contributions
- A values and purpose driven working culture
- Bursary program and encouragement to pursue future studies
- Merrit based promotions in a fast-growing company

**Minimum requirements**:

- Degree in relevant areas. Commerce, IT, Data, Project Management, Engineering, etc.
- 3 to 15 years of experience in the areas of product management, product ownership and/or development.
- Understanding of different technology platforms, their features and being able to work with solution architects/engineering leads and write detailed product requirement documents, manage future roadmaps and deliverables
- Ability to function with a high degree of autonomy
- Able to continuously balance between the customer and commercial needs
- Customer experience design of digital products and services
- Analytics/AB/multivariate testing and related tools
- Data-driven decision making

**Advantageous requirements**:

- 5 years’ experience in data intensive or fintech industries.
- Experience with coding languages
- Experience with project management systems like Jira.
- Worked with credit or transactional data.
- Experience in agile methodologies, such as Scrum, Kanban, Test Driven Design and Behavioural Driven Design

**Key responsibilities**:

- Work with internal and external customers to analyse needs and align product roadmap to strategic goals.
- Owns the product roadmap.
- Develop scope and define backlog items (epic/features/user stories) that guide the Agile software development team.
- Solve product related problems, make decisions, complete trade-off analysis to stay on track towards business deliverable commitments.
- Possess a fundamental understanding of end-to-end customer experience integration and dependencies.
- Collaborate with stakeholders during the visioning and concept development of a product.
- Accountable for the created product(s), delivering in the product model and communicating the product needs with business partners.
- Asses value, develop cases, and prioritize stories, epics and themes to ensure work focuses on those with a maximum value that are aligned with product strategy.
- Identifies and help the client understand the business model, value and value proposition.
- Develop and maintain an appropriately prioritized backlog of user stories for implementation.
- Act as an ambassador for the product internally and externally and as the primary contact for queries related to the product.
- Develop appropriately detailed specifications for the product features so they are clearly understood by the development teams.
- Represents team in front of stakeholders, clients or users.
- Work closely with product management and senior management in order to create a product that fits the company portfolio.
- Research and analyze market, the users, and the roadmap for the product
- Follow our competitors and the industry
- Increase an understanding of Agile practices, new technology opportunities and other new trends.