Product Owner / Delivery Lead Data & AI

About the Role:

We are looking for an experienced Product Owner / Delivery Lead to lead Squad 4 locally from India. The role will serve as the primary bridge between business stakeholders, Data & AI teams, and the India-based development team. The successful candidate will be responsible for translating business needs and pain points into structured, prioritised, and feasible use cases, owning the product backlog, and driving delivery from requirements through development, production, and post-deployment. This is a hands-on role requiring strong Product Ownership, Agile delivery, stakeholder management, and software development lifecycle experience.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Product Ownership & Backlog Management:

- Translate business requirements into epics, user stories, business rules, and clear acceptance criteria.

- Build, own, prioritise, and continuously maintain the Squad 4 product backlog.

- Prioritise initiatives based on business value, feasibility, risks, dependencies, and delivery capacity.

- Define and maintain a realistic product roadmap in collaboration with stakeholders.

- Make prioritisation decisions and trade-offs transparent and well documented.

- Ensure requirements are sufficiently clear and actionable before development begins.

2. Agile Delivery & Squad Leadership:

- Act as the day-to-day Product Owner and Delivery Lead for the India-based Squad 4 development team.

- Work closely with developers throughout the delivery lifecycle and provide timely functional and business clarification.

- Plan and facilitate Agile ceremonies including backlog refinement, sprint planning, sprint reviews, retrospectives, and squad synchronisation meetings.

- Monitor delivery progress, quality, capacity, risks, dependencies, and blockers.

- Ensure delivery remains aligned with agreed priorities, timelines, and quality expectations.

- Coordinate with Data & AI, IT, Security, Architecture, and business teams as required.

- Organise product demonstrations, business acceptance testing, production readiness activities, and post-deployment follow-up.

- Provide concise delivery updates and escalate significant risks or blockers promptly.

3. Stakeholder Management & International Collaboration:

- Act as the key connection point between the India-based development squad and stakeholders outside India.

- Collaborate effectively with international, multicultural, and distributed teams across countries and time zones.

- Communicate complex technical and business topics clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

- Manage competing priorities and facilitate alignment when stakeholders have different requirements or expectations.

- Build strong team dynamics and promote ownership, accountability, and delivery discipline within the local squad.

4. Adoption & Continuous Improvement:

- Work with Change Management teams, where required, to support user communication, training, and adoption activities.

- Collect and analyse user feedback and monitor product usage and delivered business value.

- Translate feedback into product improvements and future backlog priorities.

- Continuously improve collaboration and ways of working between the India-based squad and international stakeholders.

- Contribute to best practices across Data & AI product and delivery initiatives.

Required Experience :

- 3 to 5 years of professional experience as a Product Owner, Product Manager, Delivery Lead, or similar role.

- Proven experience working directly with software development teams.

- Strong experience in Agile/Scrum delivery methodologies.

- Hands-on experience with Jira and backlog management.

- Demonstrated ability to translate business requirements into user stories and acceptance criteria.

- Strong business analysis and requirements-management capabilities.

- Experience managing stakeholders across business and technical functions.

- Good understanding of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

- Working knowledge of APIs, integrations, and cloud environments.

- Excellent written and verbal professional English communication.

Preferred Experience :

- Experience leading an offshore, distributed, or geographically dispersed development squad.

- Experience working with Data, AI, Analytics, Automation, or digital products.

- Experience with Microsoft-based technologies or products.

- Exposure to cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure.

- Experience working with international stakeholders across different countries, cultures, and time zones.

Key Skills :

Product Ownership, Product Management, Delivery Management, Agile, Scrum, Jira, Backlog Management, User Stories, Acceptance Criteria, Business Analysis, Requirements Management, SDLC, API, Integrations, Cloud, UAT, Stakeholder Management, Risk & Dependency Management, Data & AI, Automation.

Education :

A Bachelor's degree or equivalent qualification is preferred. A degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Data Science, Business, or a related discipline would be advantageous.

What We Are Looking For :

- Strong ownership and accountability

- Excellent stakeholder-management skills

- Structured and analytical approach to problem solving

- Ability to simplify complex topics

- Clear and confident communication

- Strong prioritisation and decision-making skills

- Comfortable challenging ideas constructively

- Ability to manage multiple priorities and dependencies

- Results-oriented mindset

- Comfortable working independently in an international environment