Sub-Product Owner
Pretoria - South Africa
Job Summary
Reference: JHB001359-KF-1
ESSENTIAL SKILLS:
ADVANTAGEOUS SKILLS:
ESSENTIAL SKILLS:
- Proven experience in Sub Product or Proxy Product ownership within IT product teams.
- Strong backlog management and prioritization skills aligned to customer value.
- Hands-on experience with Agile frameworks (Scrum/Kanban) and working with Feature Teams.
- Solid understanding of Microsoft Azure cloud services and cloud-native application concepts.
- Java development knowledge and familiarity with Java-based architectures and toolchains.
- Ability to write clear acceptance criteria and definition of done for backlog items
- Experience coordinating development operation and maintenance activities across teams.
- Strong stakeholder management and communication skills to align business and technical needs.
- Practical experience with CI/CD and DevOps practices in an Azure environment.
- Competence in monitoring incident problem and change processes for IT services.
ADVANTAGEOUS SKILLS:
- Knowledge of Azure PaaS offerings (App Services Functions AKS) and IaC (ARM/Bicep/Terraform).
- Experience with document and output management or middleware architectures.
- Familiarity with ITSM tooling and processes (incident problem change CMDB).
- Experience with frontend and backend integration patterns in Java ecosystems.
- Experience using Jira (or similar) for backlog sprint planning and reporting.
- Awareness of cloud security best practices and managing security vulnerabilities.
- Experience with license management and compliance for enterprise software.
- Prior exposure to cross-regional support (e.g. working with teams across multiple countries).
- Mentoring experience and ability to onboard new team members on technical aspects.
- Experience with monitoring logging and observability tools in Azure (e.g. Azure Monitor Application Insights).
Duties & Responsibilities
ROLE & RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Reporting structure:
- Contractually reports to IT Delivery Manager ZA IT Hub.
- Dotted line operational report to and close collaboration with Product Owner Germany.
- Duties include but not limited to:
- Own and continuously prioritize the product backlog for the defined sub-product scope.
- Define clear backlog items with acceptance criteria and ensure a shared definition of done.
- Collaborate with Feature Teams to ensure timely delivery of features and maintenance work.
- Coordinate development operation and maintenance activities for the Sub-Product.
- Make release decisions or recommend rework based on product quality and acceptance criteria.
- Allocate available resources (budget capacity) across teams to maximize customer benefit.
- Support continuous improvement of agile working models and DevOps practices within the teams.
- Manage stakeholder expectations and act as the bridge between product vision and delivery teams.
- Mentor team members identify skill gaps and recommend training or resource adjustments.
- Maintain up-to-date product and operations documentation and ensure CMDB/configuration accuracy.
- Oversee incident problem and change processes for the assigned IT service and coordinate external
- contractors when required.
- Willing and able to travel to international stakeholders multiple times per year as per business requirements.
- Ensure security vulnerabilities are tracked and remediated in line with organizational standards.
- Any additional responsibilities assigned as per the BMW Agile Working Model Team Charter.
- All functional and steering responsibilities of a Product / Sub- Product Owner as defined and maintained in th
- Relevant IT degree or certification and proven experience in managing enterprise software products.
- 5 years combined experience in Agile product ownership software development or operations.
- Proxy or Sub-Product ownership experience.
- Strong Java development background and demonstrable experience working in Microsoft Azure environments.