Lead Associate - Product Owner

Department: IT

Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time

Location: Pune

Description

Key Responsibilities

• Own and manage the product backlog, ensuring alignment with client needs and business priorities.
• Translate business objectives into clear, actionable delivery items for the Scrum team.
• Ensure product vision and goals are well understood across teams and stakeholders.
• Contribute to product planning and lifecycle activities alongside senior leaders.

• Create, refine, and prioritise user stories, features, and epics.
• Develop acceptance criteria using the Given‑When‑Then Gherkin format.
• Ensure backlog transparency, clarity, and readiness for development.
• Work with design and engineering teams to support UI/UX wireframes and prototype development.

• Build a deep understanding of client roles, needs, and pain points.
• Facilitate requirement gathering and translate insights into product deliverables.
• Act as the client advocate within the Scrum team, ensuring solutions meet expectations.
• Support benefits realisation by tracking outcomes and validating delivered value.

• Actively participate in Agile ceremonies: sprint planning, reviews, stand‑ups, and retrospectives.
• Work closely with engineers, designers, and architects to ensure shared understanding of priorities.
• Promote a user‑centred mindset and champion best practices in software development.
• Support the team in breaking down complex problems into actionable increments.

• Monitor product performance and use data‑driven insights to guide improvements.
• Identify opportunities to optimise delivery processes and enhance product quality.
• Collaborate with technical leaders to ensure modern engineering practices and technology use.
• Support the ongoing evolution and optimisation of digital products across the portfolio.

• End‑to‑end product discovery, refinement, and delivery cycles.
• Client‑facing and internal workflows supported by the assigned product area.
• User story creation, acceptance criteria, and technical requirement clarity.
• Collaborative work with engineering leads, architects, designers, and business stakeholders.
• Product performance tracking, optimisation, and continuous improvement activities.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Proven experience as a Lead Associate - Product Owner or similar role in an Agile environment.
• Strong understanding of Agile Scrum methodologies and product management principles.
• Ability to deconstruct problems and translate them into user stories and requirements.
• Background or exposure to technical environments (e.g., .Net, Python, Java, cloud platforms).
• Experience with cloud services such as Azure or AWS.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to engage stakeholders at all levels.
• Strong client focus with a track record of delivering solutions that meet user needs.
• Data‑driven approach to decision‑making and feature prioritisation.
• Experience with user‑centred design, UI/UX concepts, and prototype collaboration.
• Self‑starter with strong work ethic and ability to work independently.