Freelance Product Owner

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