Chief Product Owner Platforms

Project overview

Job Description

Background of the assignment

The activities are carried out within the Data & DevOps Engineering Section of the DATA department of the Knowledge & Innovation Directorate of COMMIT. The Knowledge & Innovation Directorate aims to make the latest material and IT solutions applicable for our soldiers so they can win the fight. To make this possible, the focus is on accelerating the adaptability of the organization. Therefore, the K&I Directorate focuses on knowledge building, innovation, and the relationship between them. We do this by organizing the direction of knowledge building for materiel and IT within COMMIT.

In addition, we experiment, facilitate, and realize innovations. This also applies to the integration of materiel and IT. People, processes, and technology are taken into account integrally so that successful operational innovations have an effect in the combat practice of Defence. We, as the K&I Directorate, are successful when we are able to maintain a combat advantage for our soldiers through knowledge building and innovations.

The Data & DevOps Section of the DATA department of the Knowledge & Innovation Directorate aims to identify the challenges and solutions of tomorrow in the field of Data and DevOps engineering, realize promising innovations, and accommodate and stimulate knowledge sharing based on our own results and those of our partners. The Data & DevOps Engineering Section consists of Data and DevOps Engineers. The functionary is responsible for conducting research, designing, and realizing technical solutions.

Generic description of competence area and levels

Analyzes and defines current and target status. Estimates cost-effectiveness, risk points, opportunities, strengths, and weaknesses, with a critical approach. Creates structured plans; sets timelines and milestones and ensures optimization of activities and resources. Manages change requests. Determines the delivery quantity and provides an overview of additional documentation requirements. Specifies the correct handling of products, including legal issues in accordance with applicable regulations.

Summary of task and mission

Represents the needs of the stakeholder community, the voice of the customer, to the agile team. Understands customer requirements and validates that the developed software solution meets the requirements. Connects Business and Agile teams.

• Employee is specialized as a data engineer within the field, which entails the following activities:
• Inventorying and analyzing available data within both the (operational) business operations and defense operations, as well as usable data from other sources;
• Making data available and accessible in a data analysis environment in a usable form so that it is suitable for analysis;
• Unlocking a multitude of (open, closed, and commercial) data sources;
• Unlocking both real-time and batch and structured and unstructured data;
• Transforming the data to process it;
• Analyzing and selecting the best data representation method;
• Securing, analyzing, cleaning, transforming, converting, preprocessing, integrating, and optimizing data;
• Setting up and managing data pipelines (data streams);
• Researching and monitoring the quality and integrity of the data.
• Conducting technical scientific and applied research within the area of focus, by:
• Analyzing and translating problem statements into a concrete subject and approach plan;
• Drafting and obtaining approval for multiple project/research proposals;
• Formulating and testing assumptions for accuracy, usability, and applicability;
• Realizing multidisciplinary research input;
• Engaging other institutes and organizations;
• Participating in working groups and visiting (inter)national forums;
• Inventorying and analyzing (international) developments;
• Maintaining knowledge networks with knowledge institutes, universities, and industry;
• Assessing research results and the contributions of medior and senior employees;
• Providing final editing of reports;
• Presenting and internally publishing knowledge and results.
• Developing and realizing data products, services, and concepts within the area of focus based on own research, by:
• Inventorying the required information;
• Writing an approach plan;
• Informing and coordinating project members;
• Drafting and developing technical designs and concepts in a multidisciplinary context;
• Drafting and defending reports;
• Overseeing the implementation of technical designs and concepts.
• Supervising medior and senior data engineers within the area of focus, by:
• Verifying the level and aligning expectations regarding the existing and required knowledge;
• Safeguarding, enriching, and disseminating knowledge;
• (Peer)reviewing the results of assignments;
• Coaching employees on personal development.

Responsibilities

Requirements eCF profile: Product Owner

Reference Area: A.04 Product or service planning

This assignment is based on the European e-Competence Framework (e-CF). This is a European standard for describing IT competencies and the corresponding level of responsibility. The eCF profile indicates which competencies and at what level (e-1 to e-5) are expected from the candidate. We expect candidates to clearly demonstrate that they possess these competencies in their CV. This can be done by describing for each relevant assignment or position:

CVs in which the requested eCF competencies cannot be demonstrably found cannot be fully assessed for suitability.

Candidate has at least 4 years of demonstrable work experience with the chosen eCF profile similar role.

Candidate preferably has demonstrable work experience within the Ministry of Defence.

Additional Information

Hybrid working

Frequency of days working from home

On-call services

• Build, edit, and maintain the team backlog
• Define, prioritize, and validate software requirements via User Stories
• Establish acceptance criteria for stories and accept stories into the baseline
• Generate iteration goals and iteration content
• Collaborate with teams to define and implement improvement stories to enhance speed and quality
• Participate in team demonstrations and retrospectives
• the role the candidate fulfilled
• the activities and responsibilities involved
• the extent to which these align with the requested eCF competencies and the level

Project details

• Start: 2026-11-30T23:00:00
• Location: Utrecht, NL
• Languages: Dutch