Digital Product Owner

Job Description:

Digital product owners lead a team of specialists to build online products and services for customers.

Job Category:
IT Industry
See IT Industry jobs

What you will do:

As a digital product owner, you’ll:

  • work closely with your teams
  • look at user feedback to help improve the product
  • work with designers to make the product easy to use
  • develop business cases and user stories for new features
  • work with the design team to draft versions of your product or service
  • keep people informed about your product’s development
  • manage relationships between teams, partners and customers

Skills:

You’ll need:

  • knowledge of computer operating systems, hardware and software
  • to be able to use a computer and the main software packages confidently

As well as:

  • to be thorough and pay attention to detail
  • customer service skills
  • the ability to use your initiative (drive)
  • the ability to work well with others (teamwork)
  • the ability to monitor your own performance and that of your colleagues
  • excellent verbal communication skills
  • analytical thinking skills
Illustration of employee looking at workspace

Entry Requirements:

You can get into this job through:

  • a university course
  • an apprenticeship
  • working towards this role
  • specialist courses

University
You could do a degree or postgraduate degree in:

  • computing
  • project management
  • business management
  • marketing

Apprenticeship
You could start by doing a project manager degree apprenticeship.

After completing your apprenticeship, you’ll need to get experience working in digital delivery teams before getting a job as a product owner.

Work
You could start out in a junior or assistant role. You’ll usually need to have some relevant work experience in a job like:

  • product marketing
  • software development
  • customer experience
  • user experience (UX) design

When looking for work, most employers will expect you to have experience in:

  • search engine optimisation (SEO)
  • analytics and understanding online user behaviours
  • web design and marketing
  • helping a business make large changes to their digital products
  • agile project management methods like Scrum, Kanban and Lean

Other Routes
If you do not have relevant work experience, there are some things you can do.

You could:

  • develop some skills in basic web design and data analysis
  • study online about the role of digital product management
  • take a specialist course in product management
  • join online product management communities for tips and networking opportunities

Working Hours and Environment:

You could work in an office or at a client’s business.

Career Path & Progression:

With experience, you could apply for more senior jobs, such as head of product or senior product manager.

Some product managers also become self-employed consultants.

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