Product Owner

As a Product Owner you will collaborate with Business Analysts, business stakeholders, technical architects, developers, and other business and technical SMEs to maintain and prioritise product backlog representing the needs of business stakeholders across UK and International for Educational Operations. You will ensure technology development harmonises processes and creates efficiencies for UK and International qualification delivery. You will be expected to play a leading role in daily stand-ups, sprint planning sessions and retrospectives and where appropriate input into project steering group and working group meetings. Within a complex environment, you will represent the interests of the business, informing and supporting tactical and strategic decision-making to ensure proposed solutions align with organisational strategy and vision and keeping customer needs at the forefront of every update and change. Regular monitoring of progress and strategic risk management are key as you drive business change initiatives and support system adoption, bringing your problem-solving skills, adaptability, and strong communication abilities into each project phase. Additional responsibilities and accountabilities include:

• Writing and prioritising user stories working closely with the development team, defining acceptance criteria and raising and prioritising defects as well as working with the testing team to ensure the changes are tested before being released in accordance with best practices.
• Plan and prioritise own time and tasks to ensure agreed deliver deadlines are met
• Develop strong ties with business and technology stakeholders to evaluate new requirements and validate these with customers to co-create solutions to business problems.
• Manages both short-term and long-term development - ability to deliver key short-term business goals whilst creating and delivering long-term strategic roadmap
• Ensure customer requirements are captured and documented, maintaining appropriately sized and prioritised backlogs for delivery into a release.
• Evaluating progress, defining acceptable quality and when it is achieved keeping the relevant areas of the business up to date on the progress of fixes.
• Provide a point of contact between business stakeholders, change teams and technology teams - including development progress updates.
• Ensuring demonstrations of progress are provided to stakeholders and user feedback is used to inform continuous improvement.
• Identify risks and issues, particularly those which may impact on business integrity and reputation and is expected to play an active role in developing effective strategies to mitigate risks.
• Attend daily stand-ups, weekly refinement meetings and bi-weekly retrospectives.
This position has been classified as a hybrid role, requiring the selected candidate to typically spend 40-60% of their time collaborating and connecting face-to-face at their dedicated location. Aside from our hybrid principles, other flexible working requests will be considered from the first day of employment, including other work arrangements should you require adjustments due to a disability or long-term health condition.

We're looking for a highly capable and forward-thinking Product Owner to join our team. In this role, you will bridge the gap between business and technology, driving impactful change by prioritising stakeholder needs and leading agile teams to deliver high-quality solutions. If you are passionate about user-centred design, strategic problem-solving, and thriving in a collaborative environment, we would love to hear from you., As someone driven by problem-solving, you excel in translating complex business needs into actionable technology requirements, adapting effectively to agile and waterfall environments. You bring a passion for web technology, data-driven insights, and user-centred design. As a skilled communicator, you present ideas clearly and can use varied methods to connect with and influence customers, users, and stakeholders at all levels. Proactive and analytical, you make sound recommendations on backlog prioritisation, resource allocation, and task feasibility. Your technical acumen extends to tools like JIRA, SharePoint, and web analytics, along with a solid understanding of structured development methodologies, helping ensure that the product meets the evolving needs of the International Education ecosystem.,
• Certified SCRUM Product Owner or equivalent
• Direct experience of agile and waterfall delivery methodologies
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Ability to present ideas succinctly and clearly and to use a variety of skills and methods to communicate.
• Ability to document processes and functionality.
• Strong organisational skills.
• Proactive and ability to think flexibly and quickly
• Flexible approach to work practices with demonstrable ability to respond constructively to a rapidly changing work environment.
• Experience of working on an online system and developing user stories and writing development specifications/acceptance criteria
• Experience and understanding of web analytics tools (e.g. Google Analytics)
• Critical thinking; avoids making unstated assumptions
• Comfortable reading and understanding technical documents
• Systematic; able to document effective plans and report on results in a methodical, consistent and comprehensive manner
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills to ensure vision is understood and implemented correctly
• Ability to deal with ambiguity, multiple priorities and stretching goals
• Knowledge of risk management, risk identification and risk-based testing
Desirable
• Experience working in education, assessment, or regulated environments.
• Contribution to a testing or quality community of practice, internally or externally.
• Interest in new testing tools, techniques, and technologies, with a willingness to explore their adoption.
• Interest in building testing capability and maturity, not just delivering individual projects.
• Experience coaching or mentoring others within delivery or testing teams.
• Experience working across distributed or off-shore teams.
  
  We are Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a world-leading academic publisher and assessment organisation and a proud part of the University of Cambridge., First stage interview: in-person at our offices in Cambridge. You may be asked to complete a role related task at interview. If this is required, the details of this will be sent in advance of your interview.
• Final stage interview: in-person at our offices in Cambridge, if required.
If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process due to a disability or a long-term health condition, there will be an opportunity for you to inform us via the online application form. We will do our best to accommodate your needs. Please note that successful applicants will be subject to satisfactory background checks including DBS due to working in a regulated industry. We are committed to an equitable recruitment process. As such, applications must be submitted via our official online application procedure. Please refrain from sending your CV directly to our recruiters. If you experience technical difficulties or require additional support with submitting your online application, contact the Recruiter. Why join us Joining us is your opportunity to pursue potential. You will belong to a collaborative team that is exploring new and better ways to serve students, teachers and researchers across the globe - for the benefit of individuals, society and the world. Sharing our mission will inspire your own growth, development and progress, in an environment which embraces difference, change and aspiration. Cambridge University Press & Assessment is committed to being a place where anyone can enjoy a successful career, where it is safe to speak up, and where we learn continuously to improve together. We welcome applications from all candidates, regardless of demographic characteristics (age, disability, educational attainment, ethnicity, gender, marital status, neurodiversity, religion, sex, gender identity and sexual identity), cultural, or social class/background.

We will support you to be at your best in work and to live well outside of it. In addition to competitive salaries, we offer a world-class, flexible rewards package, featuring family-friendly and planet-friendly benefits including:
• 28 days annual leave plus bank holidays
• Private medical and Permanent Health Insurance
• Discretionary annual bonus
• Group personal pension scheme
• Life assurance up to 4 x annual salary
• Green travel schemes