Lead / Principal Data Product Owner

Johannesburg, South AfricaFull-timeSeniorHybridPosted 2 Oct 2026

Job Overview

Boardroom Appointments seeks a Lead / Principal Data Product Owner in Johannesburg (Cape Town candidates considered) to drive delivery and evolution of strategic enterprise data products and cloud-based data platforms. The role blends product ownership, stakeholder management, analytics, and deep GCP data-platform expertise.

You will own vision, roadmap, and backlog for enterprise data initiatives; partner with engineers, architects, scientists, and DevOps; run Agile ceremonies; and embed governance, quality, lineage, and compliance. Telecommunications experience is advantageous.

Initial 12-month fixed-term contract with a programme expected to run 2+ years; hybrid model; immediate start. Requires 8–12+ years in data/analytics/BI/data-product environments and proven GCP (BigQuery, Dataflow, Dataproc, Composer, Looker) delivery.

Key Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end lifecycle of data products from concept through delivery and optimisation

• Define and maintain product vision, roadmap, and backlog for enterprise data initiatives

• Translate senior stakeholder objectives into data-driven solutions

• Prioritise by business value, risk, dependencies, and technical feasibility

• Partner with Data Engineers, Architects, Scientists, Analysts, and DevOps on scalable solutions

• Lead Agile ceremonies and keep delivery teams outcome-focused

• Derive insights from large datasets; establish KPIs, adoption, and success metrics

• Drive data governance, quality, lineage, and compliance within the product ecosystem

• Communicate progress to executive leadership; identify innovation opportunities

• Act as primary liaison between business and technical teams for data products

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or related

• 8–12+ years in Data, Analytics, BI, Data Management, or Data Product environments

• Proven Data Product Owner / Lead Product Owner / Data Delivery Lead experience

• Enterprise-scale data project delivery; Agile/Scrum; executive stakeholder engagement

• Strong GCP experience: BigQuery, Dataflow, Dataproc, Cloud Storage, Cloud Composer, Looker

• Understanding of data warehousing, lakes, ETL/ELT, modelling, governance, MDM, quality, metadata

• Working SQL and analytics methodologies; GCP certifications highly desirable

• Telecom industry experience advantageous; product/Agile/cloud certifications advantageous

Skills & Requirements

Data Product OwnershipGoogle Cloud PlatformBigQueryDataflowDataprocCloud ComposerLookerData GovernanceETL/ELTData ModellingAgile/ScrumStakeholder ManagementSQLEnterprise Data PlatformsRoadmapping