Location: Utrecht, Netherlands
Working pattern: Hybrid - 2 days per week in the Utrecht office, with increased presence expected during onboarding
Hours: 36 hours per week, typically worked across 4 × 9-hour days
Contract: Permanent
Language: Fluent Dutch & English
The Role
We are looking for a Product Owner – Identity & Security to take ownership of two organisation wide security services delivered by an external supplier through an EU-tendered contract.
This is not a traditional Scrum Product Owner role. There is no dedicated delivery team or Scrum Master working behind you. Instead, you will sit between internal business and technology demand and the external supplier, ensuring that services are delivered within the agreed scope, roadmap, quality and contractual commitments.
You will be responsible for understanding what the organisation needs, assessing incoming requests, prioritising them against the existing roadmap and contract, and ensuring the supplier delivers the agreed outcomes.
A key part of the role is being comfortable saying "no". You will need to challenge both internal stakeholders and suppliers when requests fall outside the agreed scope, while finding practical solutions where possible.
The Services
You will manage two key product areas:
Identity Fabric
- Identity Governance & Administration (IGA)
- Privileged Access Management (PAM)
- Access management
- PKI and related identity services
Security Enablers
- Security Operations Centre (SOC)
- Vulnerability management
- Threat detection
- Secure testing
- Other security services and capabilities supporting the wider organisation
These services are provided across the organisation and form an important part of its wider technology and security foundation.
Your Responsibilities
- Own the direction and development of the Identity & Security services.
- Act as the key interface between internal stakeholders and the external supplier.
- Triage, assess and prioritise incoming requirements and requests.
- Maintain and challenge the service roadmap, ensuring it remains aligned with organisational priorities.
- Ensure requests remain within agreed contractual scope.
- Challenge internal stakeholders when demands fall outside the agreed service or contract.
- Hold suppliers accountable for agreed outcomes, quality and commitments.
- Manage supplier performance, expectations and contractual relationships.
- Understand what the supplier should deliver rather than relying on an internal team to execute the work.
- Orchestrate activities across multiple stakeholders and suppliers without having a dedicated delivery team.
- Balance operational stability, improvement and innovation.
- Work effectively across development and operations and understand how the two interact.
- Contribute to financial and budget management associated with the services.
What We're Looking For
You are a security and infrastructure generalist who understands how modern technology environments operate and can confidently work at the intersection of security, infrastructure, operations, suppliers and business stakeholders.
You will bring:
- Tangible experience implementing and/or running identity and security products or services.
- Broad knowledge of modern infrastructure and security, rather than requiring deep expertise in one particular security discipline.
- Experience with areas such as IGA, PAM, access management, PKI, SOC, vulnerability management, threat detection or secure testing.
- Strong understanding of how technology development and operations work together.
- Proven experience managing external suppliers and contracts, ideally within a SaaS or managed-service environment.
- The ability to orchestrate complex activities independently, without a delivery team sitting behind you.
- Experience working with supplier roadmaps and translating organisational requirements into clear priorities.
- Strong stakeholder management and communication skills.
- The confidence and judgement to challenge both suppliers and internal stakeholders when necessary.
- A pragmatic, results-oriented approach and the ability to balance competing priorities.
What matters is that you have real-world experience implementing and operating security/identity services and managing the suppliers responsible for delivering them.
What You'll Bring
The ideal candidate is someone who can take a complex security or infrastructure requirement, understand what is technically and commercially possible, determine what should be prioritised, and coordinate the right parties to make it happen.
You will be comfortable operating independently, challenging assumptions and holding people to the agreed scope and outcomes.
Working Environment
- Permanent position based in Utrecht.
- Hybrid working with 2 days per week in the office.
- Greater office presence may be expected during the initial period to build relationships and establish the service.
- 36 hours per week, commonly structured as 4 × 9-hour days.
- Dutch language skills are required.