Freelance Product Owner

Over deze functie

Freelance Project: Product Owner

Start Date: ASAP
Working Regime: Full-time contract job, minimum 3-4 days onsite per week
Location: Mechelen region
Languages: English mandatory, Dutch strongly preferred
Seniority: Senior, minimum 5 years of relevant experience

Role Overview
The organization is looking for an experienced Product Owner / Team Manager to lead a team responsible for applications supporting the inventory, design, build and maintenance of HFC and fiber networks.
The role combines IT, engineering and telecom infrastructure. You will define the long-term product vision and roadmap, improve delivery quality and operational stability, and guide a multidisciplinary team through modernization and transformation. The assignment also includes people management, stakeholder alignment and vendor management.

Key Responsibilities
✅ Product Ownership & Strategy
\- Define and execute the product vision and roadmap for Network Design Tooling.
\- Translate strategic objectives into actionable team goals and priorities.
\- Own, maintain and prioritize the product backlog.
\- Manage the full product lifecycle and overall product health.
✅ Team Leadership & Delivery
\- Lead and coach a multidisciplinary team of analysts, developers and external resources.
\- Take ownership of people management and HR responsibilities for the core team.
\- Drive delivery excellence, quality improvements and operational stability.
\- Monitor capacity, budget and team performance together with leadership.
✅ Stakeholder & Vendor Management
\- Manage external delivery partners and vendors in Belgium and abroad.
\- Align stakeholders across different business and technology domains.
\- Prioritize initiatives and influence stakeholders in a complex environment with competing demands.
✅ Modernization
\- Contribute to the modernization of the application landscape.
\- Support initiatives involving cloud adoption, CI/CD and automation.

Profile & Required Experience

Professional Background
\- Master's degree or equivalent through experience.
\- Minimum 5 years of experience as Product Owner, Product Lead or in a similar leadership role.
\- Experience managing and coaching multidisciplinary teams.
\- Proven experience working with software development teams and external vendors.
\- Strong stakeholder management, communication and influencing skills.
\- Experience working in complex enterprise environments.
\- Ability to define a clear long-term vision while remaining hands-on in execution.
\- Experience within telecom, utilities, network infrastructure or engineering environments is highly valued.

Technical & Functional Skills
\- Product Ownership within an IT or telecom-related environment.
\- Backlog management and prioritization.
\- Agile product delivery knowledge.
\- Ability to work effectively with developers, analysts and technical teams.
\- Vendor and partner management.
\- Knowledge of fiber, HFC, network inventory or network design processes is a plus.
\- Experience with Physical Network Inventory tooling or similar network design applications is a plus.
\- Knowledge of OSS/BSS environments is a plus.
\- Experience with modernization initiatives involving cloud, CI/CD and test automation is a plus.

Languages
\- Dutch: Strongly preferred
\- English: Fluent and mandatory