Junior Product Owner Review

I work as a Junior Product Owner within the sim only team. My day-to-day involves helping refine user stories, pulling in optimisation work and carrying out e-commerce and competitor analysis to support the development of optimisation work. I also help with feature releases and scrum ceremonies, involving sprint planning and daily stand up.

I have learnt a lot around agile practices. My team mainly practices scrum and incorporates a bit of kanban in the form of a kanban board. My learnings have included the principles of agile and how best to apply it in a team setting. I also plan on taking a lot of what I've learnt into my final year.

I really enjoy my program. I find it very rewarding and I feel like I'm learning a lot. It's given me an opportunity to explore the areas of vodafone I'm interested in, and learn more about what I'd like to do in the future. It's also provided an opportunity to get real industry experience

Very well organised for the most part. However, the structure of competencies could be improved and I would've benefited from it being made clearer to us what we had to do from the offset. It's still not one hundred percent clear what we should be actually doing with our portfolio etc. But other than that it is very well organised.

I receive lots of support alongside weekly catch-ups. These involve discussing how I've been getting on, what I'd like to get more involved in, if I've been struggling with anything and any questions I may have. Other members of the team have also been very supportive and have helped me get to grips with their roles so I have a greater understanding of the inner workings of the team

Lots of support. They are on hand to answer any questions we may have an check that we're getting on well in our roles. However, again there could be more support surrounding competencies. It was also raised to us quite late, which has meant an increased work load for the remainder of the course to get them finished

My university work doesn't apply massively to my role. However, some of the work being completed within my team relates to my role so I can apply my knowledge there. The role will also hopefully help me in the future of my degree qualification and if I continue on this path i should be more than prepped for next year

Yes there are but at the moment, in lockdown, it has been impossible to get involved in most of these. During the summer I got involved in some of the grad football on a tuesday and during lockdown I've been getting involved in murder mysteries and other calls outside of work

Yes

It's an amazing scheme that has allowed me to gain industry experience while completing my studies. I feel very supported during this time and it hasn't added huge amounts of tasks to my workload that has equated in a very manageable workload during my studies. I couldn't recommend this scheme enough

Be confident throughout the interview process and don't be afraid to share your ideas and previous experience. Make your excitement in computer science and vodafone come across and enjoy the experience regardless of the outcome. This should result in a less stressful interview process and should mean that you're better able to put your best foot forward