Product Owner – Code Modules Initiative | Kaipupuri Hua

at  Statistics New Zealand

Come play a pivotal role in an all-of-data system initiative helping New Zealand make best use of its most powerful data assets, and enabling enduring change to statistical production and the delivery of social services.

ABOUT US | KO MĀTOU

Stats NZ | Tatauranga Aotearoa is a Central Government employer of 1200+ people across Aotearoa. We provide data and statistics to support the decisions of Government, Māori and Iwi organisations, businesses, NGOs, and New Zealanders. Our work is About Aotearoa, for Aotearoa - data that improves lives today and for generations to come. We welcome every gender, ethnicity, ability, religion, age, and background and encourage all our people to be their authentic selves.

This role is permanent based in Wellington and reporting to the Manager - Integrated Data Production.

In your role as Product Owner, you will be responsible for leading teams of subject matter experts through the module development process. This covers many of the typical stages of the software development life cycle including:

• Definition of scope and data product requirements
• Coordination of coding, testing, and documentation drafting
• Peer review, publishing, and the transition to ongoing data product stewardship

While you will not be delivering the outputs of these stages yourself, you will be responsible for facilitating cross-functional teams through the process, and ideally preparing participants to drive these processes themselves in the future where appropriate.
The module development and stewardship processes are intimately connected to the production of key administrative data assets including the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) and Longitudinal Business Database (LBD). The data products created are made available to the public via the ID Commons, a forum on the Discourse platform. As such, you will need to work closely with your teammates in the Production and Datalab teams to integrate your work with regular statistical production and publishing cycles and support their continuous improvement.
While the current development process has been piloted and is well supported with guidance and templated materials, you will want to make these your own and improve upon them to ensure the process can scale to meet increasing demand.

This role would suit someone who can bring:

• Product management skills you’ve gained in previous roles with the ability to apply scrum/agile methodologies where appropriate to administer the product development lifecycle (e.g. sprint planning, retrospectives, backlog management).
• A collaborative approach, working with developers, researchers, and data suppliers to iteratively improve products.
• Leadership and strategic stakeholder relationship management.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to present effectively to internal and external stakeholders.
• Familiarity with Azure DevOps or similar tools for managing sprints and projects.
• A background in data analytics, software development, or product design is highly desirable.

Note that previous experience working within a government agency is not required.