Can you tell us the quick story about your career at SBS?
Jeremy Caramelle : During my engineering studies at ENSICAEN, I took the Electronic Payments specialty, which was very useful when I started my career in payments at SBS. I started as a developer, then moved on to a customer relationship manager (CRM) position. Thanks to my technical and functional vision of the product, I eventually took on the role of product owner (PO).
What’s your role as a product owner?
Jeremy Caramelle : I’m the PO for the Instant Payment Clearing Exchanges (IPCE) product, which enables instant transfers to be set up. My role focuses on the back end of the product – the management of interbank exchanges. In concrete terms, my work involves implementing features that will be used to make instant payments work for current and future customers.
Can you give us an example of a project you’re currently working on?
Jeremy Caramelle : At the moment, I’m working on the management of interbank exchanges for instant transfers for a UK customer.
The local currency and message exchange protocols differ from those used elsewhere in Europe. The management of “faster payments” therefore requires a number of technical adjustments – for example, the integration of a new connector – and functional tweaks, including the addition of a new currency and adaptation of incoming and outgoing messages. These are needed to match the specific features of the UK system.
What does your work involve on a day-to-day basis?
Jeremy Caramelle : We work in three-month increments, where we develop specific functionalities. Each period is divided into two-week “sprints”. To make progress in each sprint, I break the project down into small “stories” – tasks that can be completed in a few days to facilitate development.
At the end of each sprint, we do a demo to validate the developments. Finally, at the end of the increment, a major demonstration is carried out to present all the functionalities, such as how instant transfers work for the UK.
More generally, I manage my team’s backlog of tickets: analyzing initiatives from product management, creating stories, and monitoring development and demos. Outside this role, I work regularly with the CRM, who analyzes our customers’ requests. I’m also in direct contact with clients to discuss tickets and functional queries.
What challenges do you encounter as a product owner?
Jeremy Caramelle : IPCE is part of the Digital Core program. It’s older than the other products and wasn’t originally designed for deployment in the cloud. With that in mind, we regularly have to develop specific functionalities to facilitate its integration into the cloud and align it more closely with the other products.
What do you like most about your job?
Jeremy Caramelle : In short, functional analysis: Taking on a new subject, then exploring the ins and outs within the project.
How would you define a good product owner?
Jeremy Caramelle : For me, an effective product owner needs to summarize well, break a subject down efficiently to make the developers’ work easier, and identify the added value at each stage. The aim is to focus on the minimum viable product (MVP) – something that works well before trying to make it perfect or sophisticated.
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