Job Description

Role Purpose
The Product Owner III is a member of the agile team, responsible for defining user stories and prioritizing the team backlog to streamline the execution of program priorities while maintaining the conceptual and technical integrity of the features or components for the team. The role owns multiple products of varying to high complexities, impact and visibility products and engages and collaborates with product management to execute the product vision, strategy, and roadmap.
Role Description

• Takes the lead in the solution design of new features and works with business stakeholders to create the optimal user experience and assess the impact on the backend.
• Facilitates workshops and leads the requirements gathering process, including creating wireframes and engaging stakeholders for input and sign-off.
• Ensures UI alignment with wireframes and feature requirements, guiding designers and actively participating in demo sessions to substantiate design decisions based on backend knowledge.
• Documents the impact of the user experience on data models, business logic and microservices in detail, including context diagrams, system/data flows, and high-level system integration requirements.
• Review integration and architecture specifications and provides input to ensure they address all requirements.
• Acts as a subject matter expert and guides product development, coaching and supporting junior and senior product owners in their development.
• Provide input into the refinement of the program backlog, ensuring the team is familiar with the features being brought into PI planning, collaborating with program management in the refinement of the backlog? and keeping them informed of progress in achieving team PI objectives.
• Continuously refine and sequence the product backlog?:

• Gather the requirements for the product and capture them in the form of a product backlog, consisting of user stories with acceptance criteria.
• Ensure all user stories are written and that each user story has acceptance criteria.

• Provide visible, transparent, and clear direction, ensuring the development team is clear on priorities:
• Provide clear solution direction to the agile team (or multiple agile teams)
• Apply economic decision making?.
• Sequence user stories based on team PI objectives.?
• Balance PI objectives with local team requirements?.
• Ensure team backlog readiness for next iteration?.
• Include the team in backlog refinement.

• Participate in ART level events: ART sync, Product Owner Scrum of Scrums, Inspect and Adapt, PI Planning, daily stand-ups, and system demos.
• Help create a release plan and track progress towards the release of a product.
• Drive mobile digital omnichannel customer engagement based on customer preference and omnichannel strategies.
• Ensure a consistent and delightful customer experience across all digital touchpoints of the Shoprite customer journey. Customers being any end-user i.e. consumers, operational users, etc.
• Provide strategic input to customer experience improvements that help drive customer acquisition, customer retention, and conversion.
• Test new features in the staging environment (user acceptance testing) in collaboration with business stakeholders, to provide business sign-off on the feature
• Actively promote and advocate product features and customer-first product design incl. high levels of customer empathy.
• Adhere to and improve customer service levels across businesses and service.
• Provide integrated reporting and feedback.
• Engage at a senior level with respect to customer centric product concepts and best practices.
• Serve as a lead subject matter expert to guide product development.
• Coach and support junior and mid-level product owners in their development.

Qualifications and general experience

• Degree in Business, IT, Engineering, Marketing, or another relevant field - (essential).
• Certified Product Owner / certified SAFe Product Owner - (essential).
• +6 years' experience in a Lead or Senior Product Owner role, with experience working in an agile team and proven success launching new and complex product features and translating business strategy and analysis into successful consumer products - (essential).
• Extensive experience collaborating across multi-disciplinary teams to deliver complex projects - (essential).
• InDepth understanding and experience with analytics and big data - (essential).
• Strong commercial experience in digital led business development environments - (essential).
• Extensive Customer user and loyalty experience - (essential).
• Solid Knowledge of legal compliance (POPIA, Electronic Information Act, etc.) - (essential).
• General marketing or retail experience - (essential).
• Ecommerce experience - (essential)
• Exposure to the African digital market and customers - (desired).

Specific Experience: Platform

• Demonstrated ability to guide and prioritise decisions related to mobile app development, with a solid understanding of front-end frameworks (e.g., React Native, Swift, Flutter) and back-end integrations. Proven capability to align technical opportunities with product vision and user needs.
• Hands-on experience designing and managing APIs as core product assets, ensuring seamless integration with mobile apps and headless platforms to enable scalable, user-centric solutions.
• Proficiency in leveraging tools like AppsFlyer, Insider, and Firebase to extract actionable insights, measure performance, and optimise engagement, contributing directly to data-informed product strategies.
• Skilled at managing integrations with third-party systems and headless architectures, ensuring the mobile app platform evolves to meet future business and technical demands without compromising on agility or user experience.

Our Group and all its operating companies is committed to creating, embracing, and preserving a diverse workplace that values the unique talents, perspectives, backgrounds, and abilities that enrich our organisation. A place where everyone matters and feels included.
We are committed to Employment Equity when recruiting internally and externally.
Please take note that by responding to this application and providing your personal information, you confirm your express and informed consent for Shoprite Checkers (Pty) Ltd and all its subsidiaries and affiliates companies to process your personal information for the Company to consider your application for this position. All Personal Information which you provide to the Company will be used and/or retained only for the purposes for which it is collected, whereafter it will be permanently destroyed. Your information is only retained if it is required by law or where you have given consent to us to retain such information for an extended period.
If you don't hear from us within 14 days, please consider your application unsuccessful. Any personal information collected as part of your application will be destroyed, securely, in accordance with South African legislation.

Skills Required