TECH DIGGING
Behind The Scenes - Brice Bousekkine, Product Owner at Believe
After being a History and Geography teacher for several years, Brice decided to switch careers to the tech industry. After completing a short course of Web development, he did an internship at Believe as a Product Analyst/Product Owner before being given the brand new position of Believe’s intranet product owner.
Hello Brice, what is the role of a product owner?
The main role of a product owner is to represent the customer to the development team so they can create new features efficiently. In order to do that I have to analyze a situation and identify what improvements can be done so we work with UI/UX designers team to create new features or improve existing ones, and then with developers to implement them.
You haven't always been working in tech, what is your professional background?
I used to be a History and Geography teacher for secondary and high school and that is quite a change! I spent many hours thinking on how I could make a student understand and learn those disciplines without getting bored: Films, comics, music and school trips were really helpful.
Analysis is essential for a product owner, it happens to be the main skill in history and geography as well! Then you also need to be able to be a facilitator between the developers and your users, so you need to communicate by being specific and clear with the developers.
How are your past experiences helping you in your new career?
I like to talk to people, understand their needs and find a solution. As a teacher you always need to be dynamic, analyze students’ behaviors and listen to them so you can motivate them and remain calm even in stressful situations. Now I work in a different environment with different tools and pressure is different even if there is still some, it is less stressful to me and in the end you always need to remain calm to solve an issue, listen to your users and developers’ needs.
Speaking of skills, what are the most useful for a product owner?
Analysis is essential for a product owner, it happens to be the main skill in history and geography as well! Then you also need to be able to be a facilitator between the developers and your users, so you need to communicate by being specific and clear with the developers as well as popularizing the topics with your users.
You always need to be curious about new technologies and people around you. They are plenty of tutorials and articles to learn and discover technical subjects, practice on your own to create websites with different IT languages or join a course.
What do you think the music industry can teach the technology world?
Both worlds are always in movement, dynamic and evolving with different kind of companies or human societies around the globe so they can teach a lot to each other. Technology world is evolving really fast with a large variety of actors and it will still grow with new opportunities everywhere. Music industry is evolving in the same way: old majors are really important actors but newer ones are emerging since the beginning of the 2000’s. Plus there are so many data generated by the music industry, it is a nice area with multiple possibilities to explore!
Do you have an advice for people who want to switch careers for music tech industry?
You always need to be curious about new technologies and people around you. They are plenty of tutorials and articles to learn and discover technical subjects, practice on your own to create websites with different IT languages or join a course. Music is a passion, I listen to music since my childhood and I spent many hours listening to music every day so working in music industry is a good motivation and fun, if you are the same join us!
