Associate Product Owner

Our client is an established Australian technology company specializing in document management and business process automation. They develop solutions that help businesses automate manual processes across areas such as AP, sales orders, document management, and ERP workflows. With an international presence and a customer base of 30,000+ businesses, they offer the opportunity to work on technology that directly improves how organizations operate.

Position Overview

The Product Owner is responsible for driving the development and continuous enhancement of products, ensuring that customer requirements and business objectives are translated into practical, valuable solutions. This position serves as the link between product strategy, business stakeholders, customers, and technical delivery teams, with a strong focus on achieving measurable product outcomes. 

The role takes ownership of the product backlog and functional roadmap, ensuring that priorities are clearly defined and aligned with customer expectations, commercial objectives, and the organization's broader product direction. You will oversee the conversion of business challenges and customer feedback into actionable requirements, features, and improvements, while providing functional guidance throughout development, implementation, and post-release activities.

Working closely with Engineering, Quality Assurance, Solution Architecture, Professional Services, CTS, Customer Success, and Sales, you will help shape product capabilities from initial discovery through delivery and ongoing optimization.

This position combines product management, business analysis, UX thinking, and delivery coordination. It requires someone who can independently make prioritization decisions, manage stakeholder expectations, and ensure that development efforts consistently contribute to meaningful business outcomes.

The Product Owner will lead the functional roadmap for their assigned product line, ensuring alignment with the strategic direction established by the executive team. In partnership with the Head of Product and other Product Owners, you will contribute to the execution of the wider product strategy while maintaining ownership of day-to-day decisions, priorities, and stakeholder trade-offs within your area.

Key Responsibilities

Product Strategy, Ownership & Delivery

• Drive the functional roadmap for your assigned product line, ensuring alignment with the company's overall product strategy and business objectives.
• Collaborate with the Head of Product and fellow Product Owners to coordinate priorities, address dependencies, and support the delivery of strategic initiatives.
• Take full ownership of the product backlog, ensuring items are ranked according to customer impact, commercial value, technical requirements, and strategic relevance.
• Serve as the primary functional expert for your product, ensuring customer and business requirements are represented throughout the product lifecycle.
• Break down product objectives into actionable epics, features, user stories, and clearly defined acceptance criteria.
• Evaluate competing priorities and make sound decisions involving scope, timelines, quality, and delivery risks.
• Work with the Head of Product on roadmap development, release planning, and sequencing of initiatives, while partnering with Engineering on functional and non-functional requirements.
• Monitor the effectiveness of delivered features and ensure they achieve their intended business and customer outcomes.
• Ensure every backlog item is connected to a defined product initiative and business objective, considering its impact on revenue, operational costs, and business risk.

Request Management, Prioritization & Agile Delivery

• Oversee incoming feature requests and defect reports through the Aha! Product Management portal, ensuring requests are assessed and triaged within five business days.
• Create and maintain feature and bug entries for review and consideration within the Engineering backlog.
• Facilitate regular prioritization discussions with stakeholders, at least quarterly, and independently make decisions within the assigned product area.
• Conduct backlog refinement sessions with Engineering teams to ensure requirements are sufficiently detailed and meet the agreed Definition of Ready before entering a sprint.
• Maintain a well-organized and prioritized backlog, ensuring development teams focus on work that supports roadmap commitments and sprint objectives.
• Provide stakeholders with regular sprint updates covering commencement, progress, completion, scope adjustments, potential delays, spillover items, and unplanned work.
• Use established Product team reporting processes and tools to maintain visibility of delivery progress and potential risks.
• Proactively identify delivery obstacles, coordinate resolutions, and raise issues requiring support beyond your authority.
• Monitor sprint and release commitments to help ensure teams remain focused on agreed delivery outcomes.

Product Discovery, Requirements & Solution Design

• Establish a clear understanding of customer and business problems before recommending or defining potential solutions.
• Lead the gathering, assessment, and documentation of functional and business requirements.
• Facilitate discovery workshops, stakeholder consultations, and customer discussions to identify needs and opportunities.
• Conduct process reviews, gap assessments, workflow analysis, and impact evaluations for proposed product changes.
• Develop practical solution recommendations that consider business requirements, user expectations, and existing system capabilities.
• Establish measurable objectives and success indicators for product initiatives.
• Participate in User Acceptance Testing (UAT), validating that delivered solutions meet documented requirements and expected functionality.
• Identify opportunities to leverage existing capabilities, system configuration, and automation instead of developing customized solutions.
• Work alongside Solution Architecture in evaluating build, buy, and automation approaches.

User Experience & Product Design

• Collaborate with Engineering, Professional Services, and customers to understand user journeys, workflows, and areas where the product experience can be improved.
• Develop wireframes, prototypes, and other design references to communicate proposed functionality and validate usability.
• Apply user experience principles when defining features, ensuring solutions are intuitive, accessible, and efficient to use.
• Conduct usability reviews and gather feedback to identify opportunities to simplify workflows and reduce unnecessary user effort.
• Leverage customer insights and product usage data from monitoring tools to guide improvements in usability, efficiency, and automation.
• Utilize relevant design and AI-assisted tools, such as Figma and Claude, to support product discovery and design activities.

Customer & Stakeholder Engagement

• Represent the voice of the customer by developing strong relationships with key stakeholders and contacts across customer organizations.
• Work with Customer Success Managers, Sales, and Solution Architects during discovery and solution planning to establish appropriate scope and expectations.
• Participate in customer workshops, product demonstrations, discovery meetings, and solution discussions.
• Identify opportunities to improve existing customer workflows through additional features, product enhancements, and potential commercial opportunities.
• Provide guidance on product functionality and recommended practices to help customers maximize the value of the solution.
• Maintain ongoing engagement with customers to understand evolving requirements, challenges, and areas for improvement.

Cross-Functional Partnership & Communication

• Serve as the main point of coordination between business stakeholders and technical delivery teams, ensuring everyone has a shared understanding of product objectives and requirements.
• Communicate priorities, requirements, dependencies, delivery risks, and potential impacts clearly across relevant teams.
• Develop and maintain essential product documentation, including:
  • Feature briefs and functional requirements.
  • User story maps and product backlog documentation.
  • Release notes and supporting solution documentation.
  • Stakeholder updates that explain technical developments in business-friendly language.
• Translate business requirements into a functional understanding of system capabilities, including data requirements, API interactions, and integrations.
• Document technical changes, implementation considerations, deployment impacts, and potential risks for Engineering, QA, Professional Services, and CTS.
• Support product launch and go-to-market activities by coordinating with Customer Success, Sales, CTS, and Professional Services.

Team Development & Continuous Improvement

• Help strengthen Product team practices, including backlog management standards, Definition of Ready guidelines, and quarterly capability reviews.
• Promote consistency in user experience across product lines by contributing to shared design standards, reusable components, and UX review checklists.
• Explore, adopt, and share AI-powered tools and approaches that can improve product development practices, collaboration, and operational efficiency.
• Continuously develop product management capabilities, domain knowledge, and awareness of emerging technologies and industry practices.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Systems, Computer Science, or a related discipline, or equivalent professional experience.
• At least 3 years of experience in Product Ownership, Product Management, or Business Analysis, preferably within a SaaS or technology-driven organization. Candidates with demonstrated career progression from an Associate Product Owner position are also encouraged.
• Previous experience managing and prioritizing product backlogs, with accountability for delivery outcomes.
• Strong knowledge of business process modelling, requirements gathering, gap analysis, and functional documentation.
• Exposure to UX concepts and practices, including user journey mapping, wireframing, and usability testing. Experience with Figma, Miro, or similar tools is an advantage.
• Good understanding of Agile and Scrum methodologies and their application in product development.
• Proficiency in developing user stories, process flows, acceptance criteria, and basic technical documentation.
• Experience using product and project management tools such as Jira, Confluence, Aha!, Excel, or equivalent platforms.
• Familiarity with SQL, Looker, or other data analytics and reporting solutions.
• Ability to understand and discuss technical concepts such as data models, APIs, and system integrations, without necessarily having hands-on coding experience.
• Proven ability to combine strategic product thinking with practical, hands-on execution.
• Commercial awareness and the ability to assess priorities, evaluate trade-offs, and communicate business implications to senior stakeholders.
• Strong stakeholder engagement and communication skills, particularly when translating complex technical requirements into clear business terms.
• Excellent analytical, critical thinking, and problem-solving capabilities.
• Comfortable working in a dynamic environment, managing competing priorities, and adapting to changing business requirements.
• Effective time management and organizational skills, with the ability to independently plan and manage workloads.
• Ability to connect product decisions with broader business goals, customer value, and commercial performance.
• Collaborative and customer-focused approach, with a strong interest in solving complex business and operational challenges.
• Willingness to continuously learn, develop product expertise, and explore emerging technologies, including AI-driven capabilities.

Desirable Qualifications & Experience

• Knowledge or experience in accounts payable automation, financial operations, or related business processes.
• Exposure to ERP solutions such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations, TechnologyOne, or comparable enterprise platforms.
• Experience contributing to AI-powered product development, intelligent workflows, or business process automation initiatives.