{"id":3517705,"url":"https://alion.io/job/be-different-application-product-owner-development-lead","title":"Application Product Owner | Development Lead","company":{"id":4424371,"name":"Be Different","domain":"bedifferent.co.za","url":"https://alion.io/company/be-different","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":true,"employer_type":"agency","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":"jobmail.co.za","ats_vendor":null,"truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":99,"open_postings":14,"ghost_share":0.071,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0.143,"time_to_fill_p50_days":15,"computed_at":"2026-11-04T06:34:25Z"}},"role":"Product","role_family":"Product","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Stellenbosch, South Africa"],"countries":["ZA"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":35000,"max_usd":83000,"period":"year","method":"global_role_cell_scaled_by_country","sample_n":1783},"experience_years_min":2,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Claude Code","optional":false},{"name":"Copilot","optional":false},{"name":"Cursor","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"PHP","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-30T09:58:57Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-30","last_verified_at":"2026-10-30T09:58:57Z","board_verified":false,"closed_at":null,"days_open":5,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":5},"description":"In order to be considered the following is required:Around 7 years in software development, with at least 2 to 3 years leading delivery as a tech lead, development lead or similar. Ideally, have owned product decisions\nProduct sense: you can own a roadmap, write clear acceptance criteria, prioritise on value and work patiently with non-technical users\nExperience directing outsourced or partner development teams, including reviewing and accepting their work\nStrong hands-on skills in at least one modern stack (for example TypeScript / Node, Python or PHP), plus SQL, relational databases, APIs and integrations\nPractical cloud experience, ideally AWS, including CI/CD and containers\nWorking knowledge of POPIA and security fundamentals\nAn AI-native way of working: AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot or similar) every day and can show how they speed up prototyping and review. Built with LLM APIs, you know how to test and evaluate AI output, and understand the risks\nCalm under pressure: Own outcomes, not just tasks\n Advantageous requirement:Edtech experience: Moodle (including plugin development in PHP), learning or school administration systems, assessment or learning analytics\nExperience in South African schools, education non-profits or similar mission-driven organisations\nData and dashboard work with BI tools\nStartup or small-team experience where you had to build the process as well as the product\nA product owner certification (CSPO, PSPO) - nice to have, never a substitute for shipping\n Responsibilities:Roadmap and product:\nOwn the roadmap and backlog for your product areas, on behalf of the business owners. Turn the specification and feedback from schools into clear, prioritised work with testable acceptance criteria\nMake the calls on scope and sequence with the Head of Technology and the business owners of each initiative. Say no when it’s the right answer\nRun user testing, pilots and rollouts with teachers and school staff, moving from one school to the network\nMeasure adoption and impact after release. Fix or stop what isn’t working\nMake sure every build has a business owner, a clear purpose and a home once it’s live\nSource code, releases and partners:Direct our external development partners day to day: brief the work, review it, and accept or reject what’s delivered against the agreed criteria. The Head of Technology owns the contracts, vendor performance and governance\nOwn source-code control: the organization owns its repositories, source code, documentation and IP and you will make sure that’s true in practice: access, documentation and handover\nOwn release decisions, working with our AWS partner on deployments, release monitoring and incident response\nSet up and run a lightweight delivery rhythm: planning, demos, release notes and a visible roadmap that school leaders can follow\nMake sure sensible engineering basics are in place across internal and partner work: source control, code review, automated testing, CI/CD, environments and documentation\nMake sure what they ship is secure and POPIA-compliant, with consent, retention, de-identification and access control built into the requirements for learner data\nHands-on work:Stay hands-on where it adds most: prototyping, integrations and AI-assisted development. Your code is there to prove ideas; unblock work and keep you close enough to the technology to review partner work with authority\nThe successful candidate will take ownership of the product roadmap, prioritise development initiatives and lead external development partners to ensure the consistent delivery of high-quality software solutions. Beyond development, this role will be instrumental in driving successful product implementation, adoption and ongoing utilisation within schools.This is an exciting opportunity for a commercially minded, technically proficient professional who can bridge the gap between product strategy, software development and real-world implementation, ensuring innovative ideas translate into practical, impactful education technology solutions.\nIf you meet the above requirements and interested in this opportunity, please URGENTLY email us your CV.\nInformation displayed above not limited to advertisement\nPlease consider your application as unsuccessful if you have not received a response within 14 days of submitting your application.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4362,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":2,"management_years_min":2,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":[],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-30T11:01:11Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":53,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.532,"p_room":1,"age_days":4,"expected_fill_days":15,"reasons":["seen:4","agency","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-04T06:34:25Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/be-different-application-product-owner-development-lead","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/be-different-application-product-owner-development-lead.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-04T14:44:51Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":22376,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-05T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":4424371},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=4424371"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fbe-different-application-product-owner-development-lead"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fbe-different-application-product-owner-development-lead"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fbe-different-application-product-owner-development-lead"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/be-different-application-product-owner-development-lead\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fbe-different-application-product-owner-development-lead"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3517705}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"bedifferent.co.za","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3517705},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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