With the advent of the Maker Movement and the boon of easier fundraising from Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms today, it seems like everybody and their grandmother are bringing an electronic product to market. Maybe you too have a…
Product Owner
- FAQ
- Courses
- Certifications
- Careers
- Jobs
- Companies
- Skills
- Articles
Written byJessica Powers
UPDATED BY
Jessica Powers | Dec. 13, 2022
What Is a Product Owner? How to Become One, Salary, Skills.
Product owners are part of Agile scrum teams and are in charge of making sure products provide users with as much value as possible. Here’s what to know about a product owner’s salary, needed skills and how to become one.
What Is a Product Owner?
Product owners work on Agile teams to release software products. Working closely with scrum masters and developers, they are responsible for setting the strategies around product development and determining which aspects of a project to prioritize.
What Do Product Owners Do?
Product owners set goals, oversee product development and determine which features to prioritize. POs also compile and resolve lists of backlog items, which are improvements that need to be made in response to user feedback.
Product Owner Responsibilities
- Receive and apply feedback to continuously improve products.
- Help develop product roadmaps.
- Conduct interaction studies and A/B testing.
- Order product backlog items to be resolved and fixed.
- Act as the liaison between scrum team members and stakeholders.
- Make the needs of the business and the user known to the scrum team.
Day-to-Day Responsibilities of Product Owner
- Monitor help requests and implement necessary fixes.
- Participate in daily scrum meetings.
- Manage and prioritize the product backlog.
- Be available to the development team to answer ongoing questions and help resolve issues.
Product Owner Within a Company
Product owners work on product development teams and usually work closely with the scrum master and leadership teams. They may have a few developers as direct reports, depending on the structure of the team.
Importance of Product Owner
Product owners help keep the scrum development process on track. Along with the scrum master, they ensure that timelines for product development and release are followed and communicate with company leaders and stakeholders on the progress of projects.
What Skills Are Needed to Be a Product Owner?
Qualifications to Be a Product Owner
- Ability to communicate complex systems and ideas across multiple departments.
- A deep understanding of software development best practices and scrum principles.
- An understanding of Agile and its principles.
- Adaptability.
Product Owner Prerequisites
- A bachelor’s degree is often required, preferably in software engineering, computer science, data analytics or a related field.
- Many product owners hold certifications that are tailored to the role specifically.
- Previous experience being a project manager or people manager is an advantage.
Product Owner Hard Skills
- Software programming skills.
- Knowledge of Agile.
- Data analytics.
- UX research skills.
- Critical thinking and problem solving.
- IT and development skills.
Product Owner Soft Skills
- Strong verbal and written communication skills.
- Presentation and negotiation skills.
- Collaboration and teamwork skills.
- People management skills.
- Intrapersonal skills.
Tools and Programs Product Owners Use
- Jira
- ClickUp
- Pivotal Tracker
- Confluence
- Pendo
- ProductPlan
- Typeform
- Split.io
How to Become a Product Owner
Product Owner Education and Experience
Product owners usually have a bachelor’s degree in software engineering, product development or a related field. Most product owners also go through a training or certification program.
Product Owner Certificates and Courses
- Certified Scrum Product Owner
- Professional Scrum Product Owner Training
- CSPO Certification Training
- Agile Certified Product Manager and Product Owner Credential
Product Owner Career Path
Product owners may begin their career as software developers or programmers before later becoming certified product owners. After becoming a product owner, someone may hold titles like senior product owner, scrum master, product manager or product director.
Product Owner Salary and Job Outlook
Product owners and related roles can expect healthy growth over the next several years. The projected job growth rate for computer and information systems product owners, a related field, is 10 percent through 2031.
The full compensation package for a product owner depends on a variety of factors, including but not limited to the candidate’s experience and geographic location. See below for detailed information on the average product owner’s salary.
Courses
Expand Your Product Owner Career Opportunities
Diversify your professional background by learning product management skills through Udemy’s online courses.
Udemy
Product development is the process of designing, building, operating, and maintaining a good or service. Many organizations uses similar product development principles to ensure that they are not just initiating a technology, but creating a…
Certifications
Product Owner Certifications + Programs
Take your career in a new direction with Udacity’s online product management certifications.
General Assembly’s Product Management course teaches the end-to-end product management (PM) process to a real-world scenario, from evaluating users and managing a roadmap to creating a minimum viable product (MVP) and developing metrics.
What you'll accomplish
This is a beginner-friendly program with no prerequisites, although students may have had exposure to product development concepts or be informally taking on PM responsibilities in their current role. Throughout this expert-designed program, you’ll:
- Determine key risks and assumptions of a product in order to prioritize research and discovery work.
- Validate hypotheses by gathering user feedback via MVPs, interviews, experiments, and testing.
- Execute competitive research to highlight market gaps and trends.
- Speak fluently with developers, user experience designers, and other business stakeholders about priorities, requirements, and workflow.
- Apply metrics alongside objectives and key results (OKRs) to measure a product’s success and track its life cycle.
- Apply what you’ve learned to create a portfolio project: a presentation detailing your product creation strategy.
Why General Assembly
Since 2011, General Assembly has graduated more than 40,000 students worldwide from the full time & part time courses. During the 2020 hiring shutdown, GA's students, instructors, and career coaches never lost focus, and the KPMG-validated numbers in their Outcomes report reflect it. *For students who graduated in 2020 — the peak of the pandemic — 74.4% of those who participated in GA's full-time Career Services program landed jobs within six months of graduation. General Assembly is proud of their grads + teams' relentless dedication and to see those numbers rising. Download the report here.
Your next step? Submit an application to talk to the General Assembly Admissions team
Note: reviews are referenced from Career Karma - https://careerkarma.com/schools/general-assembly
General Assembly
General Assembly’s User Experience Design Immersive is a transformative course designed for you to get the necessary skills for a UX Design role in three months.
The User Experience Design bootcamp is led by instructors who are expert practitioners in their field, supported by career coaches that work with you since day one and enhanced by a career services team that is constantly in talks with employers about their UX Design hiring needs.
What you'll accomplish
As a graduate, you’ll have a portfolio of projects that show your creative and technical ability to launch the next generation of successful apps, websites and digital experiences. Throughout this program, you will:
Identify and implement the most effective methods of user research to gain a deeper understanding of what users want and need.
Use interaction and visual design techniques to craft a dynamic digital product that brings delight and function to users.
Conduct usability testing to make product experiences more accessible for diverse user populations and environments.
Learn best practices for working within a product team, employing product management techniques and evaluating technical constraints to better collaborate with developers.
Produce polished design documentation, including wireframes and prototypes, to articulate design decisions to clients and stakeholders.
Prepare for the world of work, compiling a professional-grade portfolio of solo, group, and client projects.
Prerequisites
This is a beginner-friendly program with no prerequisites, although many students are familiar with common tools for graphic and web designers and some may have had exposure to UX concepts in the past. The General Assembly curriculum helps you gain fluency in end-to-end UX processes, tools, and documentation and put them to work on the path to a new career as a User Experience Designer.
Why General Assembly
Since 2011, General Assembly has graduated more than 40,000 students worldwide from the full time & part time courses. During the 2020 hiring shutdown, GA's students, instructors, and career coaches never lost focus, and the KPMG-validated numbers in their Outcomes report reflect it. *For students who graduated in 2020 — the peak of the pandemic — 74.4% of those who participated in GA's full-time Career Services program landed jobs within six months of graduation. General Assembly is proud of their grads + teams' relentless dedication and to see those numbers rising. Download the report here.
Your next step? Submit an application to talk to the General Assembly Admissions team
Note: reviews are referenced from Career Karma - https://careerkarma.com/schools/general-assembly
General Assembly
Careers
Careers Related to Product Owner
Jobs
Latest Product Management Jobs
Companies
Companies Hiring Product Owners
Skills