Product Owner

Do you want to contribute to a more inclusive society and have a positive impact on the lives of newcomers by building meaningful tech solutions in the Netherlands? Are you passionate about technology for social impact? Do you have the grit to ensure that a tech solution excels at meeting the needs and wishes of our customers? Are you driven to ensure the best possible user experience for the people we serve, both on a technical and functional level? And do you want to be part of a dynamic and diverse team with a great social heart? Keep reading!

What is Welcome app?

Imagine: you’re trying to build a new life in a foreign country – from scratch. Where do you start? Information may not be easily accessible and meaningful connections and a support network take time to build. Language may be an obstacle. Many newcomers to the Netherlands face this challenge, and W! is there to make things easier. We work every day to make relevant information, activities, services and local organizations easily accessible in one place: Welcome app. This way, we support newcomers to navigate their way in the Netherlands. We do this by working together with many different parties: municipalities, companies and other (social) organizations.

Welcome app is currently working on behalf of four municipalities: Almere, Dordrecht, Leiden and Venlo. The ambition is to grow to 65 Dutch municipalities in the coming three years by building a sustainable model and scaling our impact. We also have international ambitions. Our young team consists of ambitious professionals who are committed to a more inclusive world.

We recently switched and rebuilt our entire app on low-code platform Mendix, which allows us to build and test much faster, so we can respond more quickly to changing circumstances and priorities of our customers and the ecosystem at large.

Who are we looking for?

As our new Product Owner you play a crucial role at the heart of our organization. You are directly responsible for implementing our mission by driving and living our product vision and building it. You work closely with internal and external stakeholders to ensure that our app meets the diverse needs, priorities and capabilities of newcomers, municipalities, organizations and locals. Your energy, leadership and growth mindset will be essential to building an inclusive and accessible environment, and strengthen bonds within the communities we serve.

What are you going to do?

• Developing product strategy and vision: You are responsible for defining the vision and strategy of our Mendix-based platform. You work to understand the needs of our users, translate them into an effective roadmap and help the team build by managing the backlog.
• Stakeholder management: As a key figure in our nimble team, you will work closely with both technical and non-technical team members. You also obtain input and feedback from the direct and indirect users of the platform. You are not only the link between developers and users, but you are also able to include the entire Welcome app team in your vision and roadmap.
• Product Development: You will lead the development of new features and improvements, with a strong focus on optimizing the user experience. You provide direction to the development team and ensure a continuous and efficient development pace.
• Inspiring and leading the product team: the current product team is nimble (with a few developers, business analyst, UI/UX designer) and diverse: you inspire, lead and drive innovation, growth and operational excellence.
• Feedback and Testing: You are actively involved in collecting user feedback and testing new features and convert these insights into concrete action points for continuous improvement of our product.

What are we looking for?

• Experience in a leading and visionary product role, preferably in a technology-driven environment.
• Ability to articulate product vision to a range of stakeholders: from users and partners to investors
• Strong empathy and understanding of the challenges newcomers face and a drive to address these effectively by building a responsive and accessible product
• Ability to translate complex needs into clear product roadmap, map out actionable sprints and oversee efficient development.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to work with diverse team members and stakeholders.
• Willingness to pick up the trash, pull up your sleeves and invest in your Mendix skills in order to be able support the development work where needed.
• Passion for social impact and building products that really make a difference.
• Excellent English language skills. Dutch language skills are ‘nice to have’
• Lived experience with displacement or migration
• Nice to have: prior experience with Mendix and/or similar low-code platforms

What do we offer:

• Start date: February 2024 (earlier is possible).
• A full-time or parttime position (4 days a week minimum).
• Mobility budget
• Time, support and space to develop professionally and personally
• Free lunch at our centrally located office in Amsterdam.
• A warm bath: our team feels more like family than colleagues.
• Flexible, hybrid and remote working policies