Product Owner – Compute & Storage (80-100% - all identities and backgrounds)

With around 180 employees, Switch supports Switzerland's universities, research institutions, and critical infrastructure organizations on their way to a secure and trustworthy digital age. With innovative IT services, secure infrastructures, expert advice, and the networking of relevant specialist communities, we help our customers effectively and efficiently use the opportunities offered by digitization.

As Product Owner for CURE (Cloud and Undercloud Reliability Engineering), you take end-to-end ownership of our cloud infrastructure services: Switch Cloud Compute, Switch Cloud Block Storage, Switch Cloud S3, and Switch Engines. Your mission? To ensure these services deliver maximum, long-term value to the Swiss education, research and public sectors – by aligning business needs, technical goals and customer outcomes.

You will be part of a dedicated product team with end-to-end responsibility for our Compute & Storage services. You will work closely with nine cloud engineers and collaborate hand in hand with an Agile Coach (people and process manager) to ensure effective delivery and continuous improvement. We follow agile working methods such as Kanban, with iterative planning, regular reviews and retrospectives. The position is permanent and can be started as of now or at a later date – what matters most is that the timing works for both sides.

Product Owner – Compute & Storage (80-100% - all identities and backgrounds)

Your main tasks are

You drive the product vision and strategy, manage and prioritise the backlog, and work hand in hand with engineering to deliver scalable, secure and reliable services. At the same time, you stay in close dialogue with architects, security teams, finance, legal and product peers to keep everything aligned – from roadmap and resourcing to compliance and budgeting. Your focus is clear: create impact where it matters most, while making smart, economic decisions in a complex, high-stakes environment.

• Define and communicate a clear product vision and strategy for our Compute & Storage services
• Own and prioritise the product backlog, to ensure high-value work is delivered first
• Translate user and business needs into well-scoped, technically feasible requirements
• Collaborate closely with engineering teams to ensure timely, high-quality delivery
• Monitor and steer delivery scope, timelines and outcomes
• Provide meaningful metrics to guide decisions and demonstrate the value of your services
• Plan capacity and suggest FTE/resource needs to support mid-term and rolling planning
• Track budgets, explain variances, and ensure cost-benefit transparency
• Ensure compliance with legal, data protection and internal governance standards
• Engage with external stakeholders, suppliers and open-source communities
• Gather feedback from internal users to inform product improvements
• Align your work with the broader cloud strategy together with Product Management, Cloud Architects, and other Product Owners

What you bring

• Several years of experience as a Product Owner or Product Manager in cloud-native or infrastructure domains
• Strong technical understanding of platforms like OpenStack, Ceph, Kubernetes
• Hands-on experience with agile methods and tools (e.g. Jira, Scrum, Kanban)
• Comfortable engaging in high-level architectural discussions with engineers and able to translate technical concepts into business-relevant decisions
• A business-savvy mindset with the ability to weigh technical and economic trade-offs
• Solid budgeting and financial planning skills
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills in English
• Nice to have:
• German language proficiency
• FinOps or cloud pricing model knowledge
• Experience engaging with open-source communities

What you should know about us

Does that sound exciting in itself? Then find out more about what it's like to work at Switch and get an overview of the benefits.

• We are a team of passionate individuals sharing a common vision to develop the research cloud of tomorrow
• We offer a supportive environment in which collaboration and knowledge sharing thrive
• We work in a unique educational environment where community-based solutions benefit students and employees
• An attractive work model with flexible working hours, remote work options, overtime compensation, and more
• Company language is German and English, team language is mainly English, and we provide support to help employees achieve a comfortable level of proficiency in German or English
• Offices in the heart of Zurich or in Lausanne at the EPFL Innovation Park

Switch is made up of people from a wide variety of backgrounds and lifestyles. We embrace diversity and invite applications from people of all walks of life. We do not discriminate based on gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, age, disability, pregnancy status, or any other differences. Also, if you have a disability, please let us know how we can make the interview process better for you; we're happy to accommodate!