Product Owner - Technology, Vice President

Job Description

Purpose

The purpose of a Product Owner is to maximize the value of the product by defining a clear product vision (are they setting the vision or would this align to ), managing authoring, refining and prioritizing the Product Backlog balancing trade-offs across desirability, viability and feasibility – making sure the right thing is being ‘built’, and prioritising work based on business goals. They act as the primary liaison between stakeholders and delivery teams, ensuring the product meets user/customer needs and delivers optimal value. Product Owners are responsible for developing a roadmap and driving execution of their product area/sub-journey, applying continuous improvement principles and techniques.

Accountabilities 

• Ensure Product Alignment with Business Goals: Ensure that the product & its features are aligned with broader objectives, driving value and contributing to the organization’s overall strategy. Utilisation of market research, analysis of customer feedback and monitoring of industry trends to identify new products, features or enhancements.  

• Communicate Product Vision to Delivery Teams: Clearly articulate the product vision and goals to the delivery teams, ensuring they understand, align and are inspired to deliver the business value and purpose of each feature or user story.

• Create and Refine User Stories: Write clear, concise user stories with detailed acceptance criteria, refining them as needed to ensure the development team has all the necessary information to implement features successfully. 

• Agile Events: Participate in key Agile events such as sprint planning, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives to keep the team aligned and focused on delivering the product backlog. 

• Managing the Product Backlog: Responsible for creating, maintaining, and prioritising the product backlog, ensuring the highest value features are delivered first, based on business needs, customer requirements and organisational impacts, balancing risk migration and future proofing against the product strategy. 

• Act as the Voice of the Customer: Continuously gather feedback from customers and end-users to understand their pain points and ensure that the product meets their needs and improves their overall experience. 

• Acceptance Criteria Definition & Management: Review and accept or reject work completed by the development team during sprints, ensuring that all delivered features meet the agreed-upon acceptance criteria and deliver business value. 

• Collaborate with Stakeholders:  Work closely with stakeholders (e.g., customers, business leaders, and marketing teams) to gather requirements, define product goals, and ensure that the product vision aligns with business objectives. 

• Monitor Product Performance and Iterate: Regularly assess product performance using KPIs and customer feedback, adjusting the product backlog and roadmap to improve functionality and meet evolving customer needs. Manage on-going readiness and 'run' activities of live products including monitoring, governance and approvals. 

• Risk and Control:  Managing risk, including identification of potential risks, development of strategies to resolve or mitigate and escalate as necessary those risks, and alignment between the product management and control functions.  

Vice President Expectations

• To contribute or set strategy, drive requirements and make recommendations for change. Plan resources, budgets, and policies; manage and maintain policies/ processes; deliver continuous improvements and escalate breaches of policies/procedures..

• If managing a team, they define jobs and responsibilities, planning for the department’s future needs and operations, counselling employees on performance and contributing to employee pay decisions/changes. They may also lead a number of specialists to influence the operations of a department, in alignment with strategic as well as tactical priorities, while balancing short and long term goals and ensuring that budgets and schedules meet corporate requirements..

• If the position has leadership responsibilities, People Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others..

• OR for an individual contributor, they will be a subject matter expert within own discipline and will guide technical direction. They will lead collaborative, multi-year assignments and guide team members through structured assignments, identify the need for the inclusion of other areas of specialisation to complete assignments. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..

• Advise key stakeholders, including functional leadership teams and senior management on functional and cross functional areas of impact and alignment.

• Manage and mitigate risks through assessment, in support of the control and governance agenda.

• Demonstrate leadership and accountability for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work your team does.

• Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the organisation functions to contribute to achieving the goals of the business.

• Collaborate with other areas of work, for business aligned support areas to keep up to speed with business activity and the business strategies.

• Create solutions based on sophisticated analytical thought comparing and selecting complex alternatives. In-depth analysis with interpretative thinking will be required to define problems and develop innovative solutions.

• Adopt and include the outcomes of extensive research in problem solving processes.

• Seek out, build and maintain trusting relationships and partnerships with internal and external stakeholders in order to accomplish key business objectives, using influencing and negotiating skills to achieve outcomes.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.

Join us as a Product Owner - Technology -VP where you will be responsible for:

• Define and communicate a clear product vision aligned with business strategy and customer outcomes.
• Create, maintain, and prioritize the product roadmap based on business priorities, customer needs, and regulatory requirements.
• Own and manage the product backlog, ensuring maximum value delivery through effective prioritization.
• Translate business objectives into user stories, acceptance criteria, and functional requirements.
• Collaborate with Technology teams, Vendor Partners, and business stakeholders to deliver high-quality solutions on time.
• Monitor product performance, delivery progress, and business value, adjusting priorities where required.
• Communicate product roadmap, progress, risks, dependencies, and delivery plans to key stakeholders.
• Ensure mandatory governance, risk, architectural, and control requirements are embedded throughout the delivery lifecycle.
• Represent the product in delivery forums, provide day-to-day guidance to the squad, and support successful product execution.
• Approve product releases and ensure compliance with the organization's Definition of Done.
• Provide strategic leadership to squads by driving alignment between product priorities, business objectives, and customer outcomes.
• Influence senior stakeholders across Business, Technology, Operations, Risk, Compliance, Architecture, and Vendor teams to enable effective decision-making.
• Balance commercial objectives, regulatory requirements, technical sustainability, and operational resilience while driving product delivery.
• Lead through ambiguity by translating complex business and technical challenges into clear priorities and actionable roadmaps.
• Mentor Product Owners, Business Analysts, and squad members to strengthen product management and delivery practices.

To be successful in this role, you should:

• Demonstrate excellent stakeholder management and communication skills with the ability to clearly articulate product vision and business value.
• Possess strong strategic thinking, prioritization, and problem-solving capabilities while remaining execution-focused.
• Have a sound technical understanding of system architecture, application dependencies, APIs, integration patterns, and end-to-end technology flows.
• Apply analytical thinking to interpret data and drive informed product decisions.
• Adopt a customer-first mindset to identify opportunities for product improvements.
• Build strong cross-functional relationships and influence teams across Business, Technology, and Control functions.
• Exhibit ownership, accountability, sound commercial judgment, and strong delivery governance at a Vice President level.

Essential Skills / Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, Computer Science, or a related discipline.
• Experience as a Product Owner, Business Analyst, or in a similar product management role.
• Hands-on experience with Agile product management tools such as Jira, Azure DevOps (ADO), or Trello.

Desirable Skills / Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience within Capital Markets and/or Wealth Management domains.
• Working knowledge of APIs, system integration patterns, data flows, and technical solution design.
• Exposure to governance frameworks, operational risk processes, and control requirements.
• CSPO, PSPO, or equivalent Product Owner certification.

You may be assessed on the key critical skills relevant for success in the role, such as:

• Ability to define and execute a clear product vision.
• Backlog prioritization and value-driven product delivery.
• Stakeholder management and communication effectiveness.
• Delivery predictability, governance adherence, and risk/control management.
• Business outcomes achieved through product enhancements and continuous improvement.
   

Job location is Mumbai.