Product Owner

Meet Ozow

Ozow is the future of payment — a world-class payment platform for customers and merchants that is Ozow easy, Ozow fast and Ozow secure. With benefits as big as our ambitions, we’re looking for candidates who can inspire us and be inspired by us. We’re striving to become the industry leader that provides the simplest and easiest way to pay. And while we’re on our way to building an inclusive payments market, we’re building an equally inclusive workforce. So, join us as we achieve big things and beyond.

More about this Ozow fantastic position

As a Product Owner at Ozow, you will be the voice of the customer to the development team. You are an essential member of the agile scrum team, by providing the vision, information and roadmap so that we can deliver a highly sustainable product at first pass.

You are an ideal candidate if you have:

  • Appropriate degree or equivalent qualification
  • Knowledge of the product lifecycle, with at least 2 years of product experience in a digital or payments environment
  • Demonstrated project management ability for a single product or a set of products.

Your roles and responsibilities:

  • Manage the product/proposition design and timely development throughout the organisation's teams.Gather requirements from internal and external stakeholders and be able to quantify and communicate business value, risks, and trade-offs.Effective prioritisation of work for the technical teams, based business value and technical considerations (improvements, speed, risk).

  • Gather requirements from internal and external stakeholders and be able to quantify and communicate business value, risks, and trade-offs.
  • Effective prioritisation of work for the technical teams, based business value and technical considerations (improvements, speed, risk).

  • Drive product/ proposition objectives with supporting initiativesHave a clear understanding of the underlying business value of objectives and contribute to providing to initiatives working towards the goal.Work across internal functions to ensure alignment in goals and ensure that dependencies are known, and work is followed through.Understand the product proposition in the market, on maintaining and improving the proposition.

  • Have a clear understanding of the underlying business value of objectives and contribute to providing to initiatives working towards the goal.
  • Work across internal functions to ensure alignment in goals and ensure that dependencies are known, and work is followed through.
  • Understand the product proposition in the market, on maintaining and improving the proposition.

  • Assist in marketing and sales requirements for branding, communication, and sales to achieve and maintain product objectives.Work closely with Sales, Customer Success, and Marketing to communicate the product proposition, information on new features, and increase market awareness of the product.

  • Work closely with Sales, Customer Success, and Marketing to communicate the product proposition, information on new features, and increase market awareness of the product.

  • Assist with product strategy development, commercial activity, and business case development approval for new initiatives.Work with the decision-makers to map out the strategy for the product based on facts and initiatives.Build out business cases for initiatives and drive approval or rejection of these cases.Understand the trade-offs and value in technical initiatives, market awareness, new features, solving existing problems, and aid decision making in providing comparative analysis.As the product expert, assist in decision making on where money will be best-spent, and ensure that maximum value is derived from these initiatives.

  • Work with the decision-makers to map out the strategy for the product based on facts and initiatives.
  • Build out business cases for initiatives and drive approval or rejection of these cases.
  • Understand the trade-offs and value in technical initiatives, market awareness, new features, solving existing problems, and aid decision making in providing comparative analysis.
  • As the product expert, assist in decision making on where money will be best-spent, and ensure that maximum value is derived from these initiatives.

  • Develop in-depth knowledge of competitive products, their strengths and weaknesses, global and local product/proposition best practices and current product/proposition consumer trends.Understand the scope and breadth of competitor products, in functionality, proposition, and target market.Research best practices and leading company offerings and understand where we can improve/copy/innovate.Track consumer trends and usage of the product and use this information to contribute to the product roadmap, in order to fill customer needs and solve pain-points.

  • Understand the scope and breadth of competitor products, in functionality, proposition, and target market.
  • Research best practices and leading company offerings and understand where we can improve/copy/innovate.
  • Track consumer trends and usage of the product and use this information to contribute to the product roadmap, in order to fill customer needs and solve pain-points.

  • Help with product/proposition research initiatives.Work with the R&D team to prove new concepts and novel ideas. Help build out a compelling business case of future value and help in the transition process of research work into commercialisation.

  • Work with the R&D team to prove new concepts and novel ideas. Help build out a compelling business case of future value and help in the transition process of research work into commercialisation.

  • Help with stakeholder management internally and externallyOver-communicate and manage expectations on progress on initiatives.Assist in the communication and support of merchants and customers, keeping stakeholders up to date with progress.

  • Over-communicate and manage expectations on progress on initiatives.
  • Assist in the communication and support of merchants and customers, keeping stakeholders up to date with progress.

  • Establish and manage product/proposition performance metricsDefine product metrics clearly and maintain these metrics with relation to the proposition and target customer base.Measure and evaluate product performance, provide the reasoning behind the current state of metrics.Establish a baseline of current product performance and track the performance of initiatives against these metrics.

  • Define product metrics clearly and maintain these metrics with relation to the proposition and target customer base.
  • Measure and evaluate product performance, provide the reasoning behind the current state of metrics.
  • Establish a baseline of current product performance and track the performance of initiatives against these metrics.

  • Manage activities to meet the financial targets of the products and services that have P&L objectivesUnderstand the costs and benefits of the product and new initiatives. Work closely with the Sales and Customer Success teams to ensure that P&L targets are met.Understand the objectives and targets of functional divisions and assist the enablement of these targets.

  • Understand the costs and benefits of the product and new initiatives. Work closely with the Sales and Customer Success teams to ensure that P&L targets are met.
  • Understand the objectives and targets of functional divisions and assist the enablement of these targets.

  • Working closely with an agile development team and R&D to deliver on initiatives.Be the glue between functional silos – translate functional requirements into technical requirements and be able to track and communicate progress on work.Always be available to the technical team to answer questions and make decisions on development decisions.A good understanding of what agile truly mean, with the application of lean practices.Work closely with the Agile Coach in order to improve the development process and integrate tightly into the development team.
  • Be the glue between functional silos – translate functional requirements into technical requirements and be able to track and communicate progress on work.
  • Always be available to the technical team to answer questions and make decisions on development decisions.
  • A good understanding of what agile truly mean, with the application of lean practices.
  • Work closely with the Agile Coach in order to improve the development process and integrate tightly into the development team.

Your skills and experience:

  • Strong functional product knowledge – understand the product inside and out.
  • Strong leadership skills and the ability to lead a team – influence and lead without necessarily managing the team.
  • Someone who is well organised and has a proven track record in end-to-end product development and product maintenance – from ideation to production, enhancing the product features set through every iteration.
  • A thorough understanding of the payments industry and digital products. Know how to deliver, maintain, and measure effective digital products.
  • Attention to detail, leaving nothing out in analysis and delivery.
  • The ability to translate between functional requirements and technical requirements. Map functional requirements into technical work items, understand the trade-offs between the delivery of technical improvements, technical debt, and functionality.
  • Be able to build relationships easily with both internal and external stakeholders. Build strong relationships between the different internal departments, and external stakeholders (merchants, payers).
  • Goal-oriented and performance-driven – drive the delivery forward of projects towards the business goals.
  • Customer service orientation – be sensitive to the requirements and needs of internal stakeholders, as well as our customers and be able to balance these requirements. Manage relationships in a proactive manner and build strong relationships with our customers.
  • Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written. Communicate decisions and rationalise debates with conclusive data.  Communicate progress on the delivery of single features.  Work with the Customer Success team to craft messaging and communicate to our merchants and payers.  Communicate business value clearly in order to prioritize effectively.
  • Assertiveness – the ability to say no, while backing up decisions with sound data.

Health and safety first

These are unprecedented times and because our people couldn’t be more important to us, health and safety couldn’t be more important to us. We’ve made sure that our office is a safe place to work and we’ll continue to do so, to ensure that we combat the spread of COVID-19

Benefits as big as our ambitions — huge

At Ozow, first and foremost, you’ll get to do meaningful work and grow your career. But we’re also not your average 9-5 company. We work together and play together and because we really care, we offer plenty of perks too.

Some of the things to look forward to:

Fitness challenges and healthy eating. Medical and Life insurance plans. Be the hero or toast the hero of the month at first-Friday drinks. Take half a day off from work on your birthday and let us celebrate this special day with you by giving you a little spoil. Your family is our family, they to get spoils and get to join us on special events. Our holistic wellness program will give you access to a toll-free confidential telephonic counseling line which is available in all 11 languages, 365 days a year. We thrive on seeing our team members grow by creating a learning culture. There is so much more where this came from, but enough to get you excited.

Convinced? We thought so.

If we seem like the kind of forward-thinking, progress-making, energetic company you’ve been waiting for, give us a shout. We’d love to hear from you.

Ozow is the future of payment — a world-class payment platform for customers and merchants that is Ozow easy, Ozow fast, and Ozow secure. With benefits as big as our ambitions, we’re looking for candidates who can inspire us and be inspired by us. We’re striving to become the industry leader that provides the simplest and easiest way to pay. And while we’re on our way to building an inclusive payments market, we’re building an equally inclusive workforce. So, join us as we achieve big things and beyond.