Technical Proxy Product Owner (Cloud & Hybrid Connectivity) (m/f/n)

For one of the EU institutions, we are looking for a Technical Proxy Product Owner (Cloud & Hybrid Connectivity).

Relocation to Luxembourg is required.

Offer

• B2B contract
• Rate: up to 600 EUR/MD
• Long-term cooperation

Role Purpose

The Technical Proxy Product Owner – Cloud & Hybrid Connectivity acts as the technical and product interface between the Customer Product Owner, Cloud Architects, engineering teams and dependent infrastructure squads.

The Cloud product currently provides and operates AWS infrastructure and will progressively extend its scope to Microsoft Azure. It is also responsible for cloud and hybrid connectivity, including interconnection services provided through partners.

This is not a purely functional Product Owner position.

The PPO must possess sufficient technical depth to:

• understand the architecture proposed by Cloud and Network Architects;
• challenge technical choices and assumptions;
• identify dependencies, risks and operational impacts;
• understand alternatives and associated trade-offs;
• translate customer requirements into technically meaningful backlog items;
• verify that proposed solutions meet business, security, resiliency, automation and operational requirements.

The PPO does not replace the Technical Architect but must be capable of having a peer-level technical discussion with the Architect and of challenging a proposal when necessary.

Required Experience

• 7+ years of experience in infrastructure, networking, cloud or related technical domains;
• 3+ years of practical cloud infrastructure experience, preferably AWS;
• significant experience with enterprise networking and BGP;
• practical exposure to hybrid cloud connectivity;
• experience working with architects and senior engineers;
• experience with Infrastructure as Code;
• experience using Git-based CI/CD workflows;
• experience working in complex environments involving multiple infrastructure teams;
• experience converting business requirements into technical deliverables;
• experience reviewing technical designs and identifying risks or missing requirements.

Experience in large-scale, regulated or security-sensitive environments is highly desirable.

Tech Stack

• AWS
• Azure
• Enterprise Networking
• BGP
• Hybrid connectivity
• Equinix / Cloud Interconnection
• Terraform
• Ansible
• Git / GitLab
• CI/CD
• NetBox / Source of Truth principles
• Security architecture
• Product ownership
• Stakeholder management

Certification Profile

At least one major Cloud certification, for example:

• AWS Solutions Architect – Professional;
• AWS Solutions Architect – Associate with substantial production experience;
• Azure Network Engineer Associate.

And at least one advanced networking credential or equivalent proven expertise, for example:

• CCNP Enterprise;
• CCNP Enterprise + ENARSI;
• CCNP Enterprise + ENCC;
• JNCIP equivalent;
• existing AWS Advanced Networking Specialty.

And practical production experience with:

• Terraform;
• GitLab CI/CD;
• BGP;
• hybrid cloud networking.

Key Responsibilities

Product Ownership and Customer Interface

• understand customer business and infrastructure requirements;
• translate requirements into product capabilities, epics, features and actionable backlog items;
• establish clear acceptance criteria;
• clarify requirements before engineering work starts;
• prioritize the backlog together with the Customer Product Owner;
• identify technical prerequisites and external dependencies;
• ensure that architecture and engineering activities remain aligned with product priorities;
• communicate technical constraints, risks and alternatives in language understandable by the Product Owner;
• provide transparency regarding delivery status, risks, dependencies and technical debt.

The PPO is expected to actively participate in discussions rather than simply forward information between the Product Owner and engineering teams.

Architecture Challenge and Technical Governance

The PPO must be capable of reviewing and challenging proposed cloud and connectivity architectures. The PPO must be able to distinguish between a technically functional solution and a production-ready, secure, resilient and maintainable service.

Cloud Infrastructure

Strong knowledge of AWS infrastructure is required. The candidate should understand, at minimum:

• AWS Organizations and multi-account architectures;
• VPC design;
• subnets and routing tables;
• Transit Gateway;
• Direct Connect;
• VPN connectivity;
• PrivateLink and VPC endpoints;
• Route 53 and DNS integration;
• Internet Gateway and NAT Gateway;
• Security Groups and Network ACLs;
• IAM concepts and cross-account access;
• availability zones and regional architectures;
• high availability and disaster recovery principles;
• cloud monitoring and logging;
• infrastructure automation;
• cloud cost drivers and basic FinOps principles.

Networking and Hybrid Connectivity

Strong networking knowledge is mandatory. The candidate must be sufficiently comfortable with BGP to discuss routing policies with network architects and understand the potential impact of their decisions.

Knowledge of cloud interconnection models, including technologies and services such as:

• AWS Direct Connect;
• Azure ExpressRoute;
• Equinix Fabric;
• cloud exchange/interconnection services;
• colocation environments;
• redundant physical and logical connectivity;
• BGP-based cloud connectivity.

Infrastructure as Code and Automation

The Cloud product follows an Infrastructure as Code and automation-first approach. The PPO is not expected to be the team's main developer but must understand the technologies sufficiently to review implementation approaches and challenge manual processes.

The PPO should be comfortable opening a GitLab repository, understanding its structure, reviewing a Merge Request and following a CI/CD pipeline. The PPO should be capable of reading a Terraform plan and understanding the infrastructure changes that will result from its execution.

NetBox is used as a Source of Truth. The PPO must understand:

• IP Address Management;
• prefixes;
• VLANs;
• devices;
• interfaces;
• sites;
• tenants;
• relationships between inventory data and automation;
• API-driven integrations;
• the principle that automation should consume authoritative data rather than duplicate it manually.

The PPO must actively challenge solutions where configuration is manually maintained outside the agreed Source of Truth.

Cross-Squad Coordination

Cloud infrastructure cannot operate independently. The PPO must actively coordinate requirements and dependencies with other technical products and squads. The PPO must think end-to-end, not only within the Cloud squad boundary.

Security, Resilience and Operational Readiness

The PPO must challenge solutions from an operational perspective. A solution should not be considered complete simply because it can be deployed successfully. It must also be operable, observable, recoverable and supportable in production.