Product Owner

Roadmap and prioritisation

• Turning the long-term product vision into prioritised initiatives and a short to mid-term roadmap.
• Creating feature lists in Aha and mapping them to product, product line and group-wide objectives.
• Balancing strategic features (including non-functional requirements), customer requests and technical work.
• Reviewing Ideas Portal submissions against short to medium term strategic roadmaps.
• Identifying where AI capability could add genuine value to your product and assessing those opportunities alongside other roadmap candidates.
• Planning the content and target dates of releases.

Requirements and delivery

• Liaising with Delivery with regard to the inclusion of technical debt and other quality-related development.
• Understanding the AI-assisted development practices Delivery uses, and factoring their impact on scope, estimates and release planning.
• Managing the feed of features and requirements into TFS.
• Documenting feature descriptions, requirements and acceptance criteria where appropriate, making appropriate use of AI tools to improve speed and quality of output.
• Working closely with the Delivery team and, where appropriate, the Business Analyst to make sure requirements are documented and understood.

Communication and documentation

• Reporting on the progress of product development against strategic objectives.
• Providing product-specific feedback to your Product Manager to shape future strategic direction.
• Producing product and release documentation for marketing, training and technical purposes.
• Providing status and planning communication to internal stakeholders.

Cross-team and commercial

• Taking part in pre- and immediate post-sale activities where product change is required.
• Managing the New Product Introduction (NPI) process for new products and new features within the scope of your field.
• Building strong relationships with key departments, especially Delivery, Account Management, Project Services, Sales and Help Centre.

• 3-5 years’ experience of product ownership, product management or business analysis experience.
• Able to balance customer, product strategy and technical priorities.
• A technical brain with sound commercial understanding.
• A flair for product management, covering usability, design, functionality and technical excellence from concept through to enhancement.
• Excellent people skills, able to influence stakeholders at every level, including board level.
• Strong planning and organisational skills.
• Genuine enthusiasm for new and disruptive technologies, and fluency with AI tools as part of everyday working practice, with the judgement to know where they help and where they don’t.

How you work

• A problem solver who can always find a way to get something done.
• An eye for detail, but an eye on the wider picture.
• Comfortable negotiating through conflict.
• A team player, able to work cooperatively with others towards a common goal.
• Self-motivated and driven.

Additionally, the following skill areas would be advantageous:

• Experience within the hospitality industry.
• Experience of adopting AI tools within a product or delivery team, including selecting tools, embedding them in ways of working and demonstrating the benefit.
• Exposure to AI-assisted development. Understanding the approach is enough, as hands-on coding isn’t required.
• Experience of taking AI-enabled features from concept through to release.

The role will involve significant interaction with existing and prospective customers, and will require travel and overnight stays from time to time.

How we use AI is evolving quickly and a lot is still to be decided. You’ll have a say in that, and we’ll look to you to share what you learn.

This job description is a guideline and will be reviewed as circumstances change. Other duties within your skills and capabilities may be assigned from time to time.

Pay: £65,000.00-£81,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• Company pension
• Cycle to work scheme
• Employee discount
• Enhanced maternity leave
• Financial planning services
• Free parking
• Health & wellbeing programme
• Life insurance
• On-site parking
• Profit sharing
• Referral programme
• Sick pay
• Work from home

Licence/Certification:

• Right to Work in UK (required)

Zonal is the UK’s leading technology partner to the country’s biggest and best pubs and restaurants. Our software covers EPoS, loyalty, CRM, table bookings, stock control and BI reporting, and our customers use it every day to run their businesses.

We’re looking for a Product Owner who shares our passion for building products our customers love and wants to take ownership of where a product goes next.

You’ll be fully responsible for executing the short to medium term roadmap for one or more products, or for a related product line within the Zonal Ecosystem. You’ll turn the strategic objectives set by your Product Manager into prioritised feature lists, organised into releases. You’ll also make sure product documentation and communication reach the business in good time.

You’ll be the go-to source of product knowledge for the business. You’ll build up product experts across the business teams and keep them up to date as the product evolves, so they can train others. You’ll evangelise your product both internally and in customer-facing situations.

AI is changing how products are built, and this role is part of that change. You’ll make full use of AI tools in your own work, for example to accelerate research, synthesise customer feedback, draft documentation and requirements, and pressure-test ideas. You’ll also help shape how we use AI as we build and support our products. An element of vibe coding and prototyping using AI tools is expected.