Product Owner – COEX Product Range/IP Camera Specialist

Reporting directly to the Head of Product Management, you will be part of a product management team, helping define and drive new COEX and IP Camera technology throughout the business based on market needs, bringing new products to market, and coordinating and managing an ongoing roadmap over product lifecycles. 

We have well-established Product Management and Development teams and want to improve our product ownership, discipline and abilities around software requirements and user stories. As a Product Owner, you will work in a team of Product Managers, Software Developers and QA to help prepare, refine, and manage our development backlog to maximise our ability to deliver great features and products.

The role has a focus on owning the technical roadmap of your products with an ability to connect high-level product vision and requirements to the development requirements of the product. A key mechanism for this is creating ‘user stories’ and acceptance criteria, which guide our development team to ensure we meet objectives around value.

As the Product Owner, you will also play a key role in helping converge our solutions and technology through consistency and identifying ways of reusing components and paradigms.

You will also serve as the internal (and occasionally external) evangelist for product offerings, presenting to sales channels and key customers.

Key Responsibilities

• In partnership with the Product Manager, end-to-end ownership of COEX camera stations and ancillary products.
• End-to-end ownership of IP camera/encoder product line
• Provide a key interface between Product Development, Sales / Marketing and Procurement teams.
• Drive, coordinate and enable small development and test teams in support of the roadmap, products and projects
• Control the priority and budgeting of development activities.
• Maintain a product backlog, defining user stories and use cases for product features and functions (Agile/Scrum-based software development).
• Create user stories based on the market’s needs.
• Specify market requirements for current and future products by conducting market research supported by ongoing input from sale staff, customers, prospects and consultants.
• Analyse potential partner relationships for the product range.
• Drive buy-build-partner analysis and, where necessary, review potential partner relationships for the product.
• Manage the entire product line life cycle from sunsetting legacy products to prototyping and testing new features/products and ideas.
• Coordinate product life cycles from strategic planning to tactical go-to-market activities.
• Carry out competitive analysis and industry-wide market research to identify opportunities in the market to introduce new products/features and functions.
• Develop and maintain a detailed knowledge of every aspect of the software and hardware platforms.
• Monitor and manage the user experience for software and features.
• Aid with escalated customer support tickets providing peace of mind to the customer while working with internal teams to resolve.
• Identifying areas of improvement to software, hardware, and production processes.
• Measure the progress of key activities and produce stakeholder reports. Contribute to the development and maintenance of a document library of:
  • Product specifications
  • Certification standards
  • Sales and pre-sales support
    • Product Marketing
    • Customer and reseller product support information in conjunction with the Global Support team
    • Features and benefits
    • Market competition
    • Tips and Tricks for use
    • Product Bulletins
  • Third-party video management system compatibility list.

Key Personal Attributes

• Technologically savvy – to fully exploit emerging technology to keep our product vision and roadmap relevant and compelling for customers.
• Committed and effective team player – to collaborate well with others in the business strategy team, cross-functionally – to harness wider capability and to work effectively in a matrix environment
• Excellent communication skills – to actively listen to external requirements and trends and key stakeholders internally, and to be an articulate and confident communicator    
• Analytical, enquiring, and investigative mind – adept at synthesising various technologies and capabilities into our products in a way that customers will love 
• Process-oriented – to ensure effective follow-through by process owner and rest of process management team

Experience:

• Technical degree (or equivalent industry experience) – graduate or graduate calibre
• Track record of quantified achievements in product management 

Ideal requirements

• Expert in IP camera/encoder products and market essential
• Industry product management/owner experience is desirable
• Experience with hazardous area products
• Good understanding of optical thermal imaging technology is essential
• Knowledge of IP networks and analogue video systems
• Comfortable liaising with international clients and suppliers
• Knowledge of industry-standard CCTV communication protocols and cyber security standards is an advantage

Eligibility for Employment in the UK

In accordance with current legislative requirements within the UK, any successful applicant must produce verification of their eligibility to live and work in the UK. Such verification should be taken in advance of the employment start date and the applicant will be unable to start in their role until this has been received by Synectics.

Our Commitment to Equality and Diversity

Synectics plc and its subsidiaries are committed to promoting equal opportunities in employment and in our employment policies for recruitment, selection, training, development and promotion. Such policies are in place to ensure that both job applicants and employees of Synectics receive equal treatment regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.