Product Owner

WHO WE ARE | Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Paris, Descartes Underwriting was born of the conviction that climate change calls for a revolution in the insurance industry to better protect individuals, businesses, and governments. We provide data-driven insurance products based on satellite imagery and IoT to protect corporate and public sector clients against climate risk and natural catastrophes. Following a Series A funding of 18m USD in September 2020, we opened offices in New York, Singapore, Sydney and London. We recently entered the Next40, due to our Series B funding of 120m USD in February 2022. Today, Descartes’ ambitious and international team of 70+ is proud to protect 150+ clients – several from the Fortune 500 – in 60+ countries.

OUR PURPOSE | Losses from catastrophes and man-made disasters are likely to increase year after year due to demographic density and climate change. We firmly believe that the insurance sector can and must play a critical role in helping enterprises and individuals cope with climate risk. This will require, however, a deep transformation of the sector, as current insurance products often lack transparency, carry expensive premiums, and come with slow claims processing.

OUR APPROACH | True to our namesake, René Descartes, one of the greatest European scientific philosophers of the 17th Century, our company draws a distinct advantage in challenging the approach adopted by traditional insurers. Utilizing forward-looking models and real-time monitoring from satellite imagery, IoT and big data analytics, Descartes’ products help businesses bounce back faster. In collaboration with our partners, our parametric insurance products can serve clients across the globe, from mid-size tickets to EUR +100 million.

ABOUT THE ROLE

Due to our consistent growth, we are seeking to expand our Data, Software and DevOps team. We are searching for a Product Owner. As Product Owner:

• Your role is transversal and includes operational and strategic missions

• Your first mission would be to communicate a lot with the different teams to understand the business needs

• You would be in charge to kick start 1 to 3 projects from scratch

• You will collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to bring the proof of value for users

• You will oversee the processes to make each individual excel at their work

 KEY MISSIONS 

• Elaboration, follow-up and respect of the planning

• Management of internal and external requirements

• Management of the backlog

• Write User Stories based on business requirements

• Detection of user issues and follow-up of resolutions

• Break down and describe the functionalities so that the development team can implement them

• Prepare and present the implementation steps of the solution

• Provide support during the implementation (understanding the workflow)

• Deploy the configurations with the deployment tool and follow the implementation

TECH STACK ️

• Cloud provider: GCP

• Code versioning tool: Git + Gitlab

• OS: Linux

• Container: Docker

• Code base: Python

• Notification tool: Slack

EQUIPMENT ️

• Laptop: premium DELL XPS 15

• OS: you decide

ABOUT YOU

EXPERIENCE & QUALIFICATIONS 

[Management skills & Must-have]

• 5+ years’ experience in Product Owner position(s)

• At least 2 years of experience in team or project management

• Experience managing offshore teams

• Tech roadmap and MVP critical path definition

• Scoping and identifying solutions with business team

• Ability to handle human interactions between tech and business

• Experience with agile developments methods

• Expert knowledge of the best practices and technical landscape of the entire development software lifecycle (microservices, Cloud, CI/CD, TDD, DDD, SOLID principles…)

• Fluency in French and English is mandatory

[Nice-to-have]

• Experience in the insurance or financial sector is a strong plus

• You have an entrepreunarial spirit, ready to build from scratch and face the challenges in consequences

MINDSET 

• Strong interest with climate issue (it’s not a hoax, many people suffer from it)

• Being comfortable to work alongside corporate insurers (some still wear suits)

• Willingness to help junior (remember how you were when you started)

• Strong team spirit and ability to work (you’ll have to give feedbacks and take some)

• Rigorous, creative and meticulous mind (we handle large insurance, we take our time)

• Strong desire to learn (there’s no limitation to the tech used, we’re happy to test and learn new tools)

• Eagerness to work in a multi-cultural environment (policies and teams are from all around the world)

WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU? 

• Join a company with a true purpose – help us help our clients be more resilient towards climate risks

• A competitive salary, bonus and benefits (Premium Alan health insurance, Swile restaurant vouchers, Navigo reimbursement etc.) 

• The opportunity to grow in your role, as the company does

• Commitment from Descartes to it’s staff of continued learning and development (think annual seminars, training etc.)

• Be part of a collaborative, diverse team where your ideas are heard 

• A paid referral scheme for successfully referring peers

HOW TO APPLY 

If this sounds like the perfect challenge, please don’t hesitate to submit your application and resume on: https://www.descartesunderwriting.com/careers/