Hello, I'm

Tariq Iftikhar

Product Owner & Builder — Manchester

Open to roles in Manchester & remote

Product Owner with 9 years' experience leading the development and optimisation of a live transactional booking and payment platform. Worked directly with business leadership to translate commercial objectives into structured requirements and prioritised delivery, collaborating with an offshore development team to ship reliable releases. Strong background in backlog ownership, stakeholder engagement, requirement definition, and measurable commercial impact. PSPO I and PSM I certified.

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Impact

Numbers that matter

£1M+
Annual platform revenue supported
+22%
Revenue increase during post-Covid reopening period
~0%
No-show financial exposure after payment redesign
5,000+
Monthly active booking users

Experience

Where I've worked

Product Owner

2016 – 2025

Brazilian Waxing Company — Manchester

Owned product vision, strategy and Agile delivery for a live, high-traffic digital booking platform used by 5,000+ monthly active users across multiple locations, encompassing online bookings, payments, automated reminders and internal operational tools.

  • Owned and continuously refined the product backlog, ensuring delivery teams had prioritised, well-defined and actionable work
  • Translated business goals into clear epics, user stories and acceptance criteria for sprint delivery
  • Well-versed in Scrum ceremonies — sprint planning, stand-ups, reviews and retrospectives — and how they support Agile delivery
  • Triaged and prioritised incoming change requests, balancing business urgency against roadmap commitments
  • Led controlled UX experimentation across booking and payment flows, measuring impact before wider rollout
  • Managed third-party integrations including Stripe payments and SMS notifications
  • Performed acceptance testing and provided final sign-off on releases before deployment to production
  • Gathered user feedback through direct observation and ongoing conversations with staff and clients to identify friction points and inform priorities

Freelance Project Manager

2015 – 2017

Chapter One — Part-time / Freelance

  • Led end-to-end setup and launch of a mobile QR-based booking system
  • Delivered marketing campaigns to improve customer engagement and conversion

Products

Things I've built

Apply or Not

applyornot.app
Open

An AI-powered SaaS tool that analyses your CV against any job description and gives you an honest match score with a clear recommendation on whether to apply. Built to save job seekers time by helping them focus on roles where they're genuinely competitive.

  • Conceived, designed and built the full product end-to-end — from problem identification through to launch
  • Integrated AI to provide personalised, actionable feedback on CV-to-job fit
  • Focused on honest, no-fluff recommendations — telling users when not to apply is just as valuable
  • Developed go-to-market strategy through Reddit community engagement and authentic founder storytelling

PO Simulator

In development
Coming soon

A hands-on simulator for aspiring Product Owners who want real practice, not another multiple-choice quiz. Built after identifying a gap in the market: every PO course teaches vocabulary, none teach judgment. Scenarios are grounded in real-world situations sourced from active PO communities, evaluated across dimensions like stakeholder empathy, business alignment, and strategic thinking.

  • Identified the problem through first-hand job hunting experience and research across PO forums and communities
  • Scenario-based learning using the Double Diamond framework — users practice discovery, definition, development and delivery
  • AI-powered evaluation rubric gives scored, coaching-style feedback rather than pass/fail answers
  • Roadmap includes user story writing, epics, backlog prioritisation, and stakeholder management exercises

BoutFinder

boutfinder.com
Open

A match-making platform built specifically for amateur boxing clubs in England. Designed to help clubs find and arrange bouts for their boxers while staying fully compliant with England Boxing's strict matching rules around weight, age, experience, and grade.

  • Identified a real gap — club coaches spending hours manually searching for suitable opponents across different clubs
  • Built matching logic around England Boxing's official rules to ensure every suggested bout is compliant
  • Designed for club coaches and matchmakers, not just individual fighters
  • Mobile-first design built around the core workflow of finding, vetting and agreeing a bout

Case Studies

Work in depth

Booking Platform
Product Design & Ownership

Brazilian Waxing Company — Booking Platform

End-to-end redesign of a salon booking platform serving 5,000+ monthly users. Introduced upfront Stripe payments, automated reminders, and self-serve rescheduling — eliminating no-shows entirely.

UX Research Product Strategy Agile Delivery Stripe Integration
Read case study

Skills

What I bring

Product Ownership

Backlog Ownership User Stories Acceptance Criteria Evidence-Based Prioritisation Product Vision

Agile Delivery

Scrum Continuous Improvement Cross-Functional Teams

Tools

Jira Confluence Figma Google Analytics Stripe API Integrations

Certifications

PSPO I

Scrum.org — 2025

PSM I

Scrum.org — 2025

The Product Owner Profession: Unleashing the Power of Scrum

Coursera — January 2026

Beyond Work

Places I've been

When I'm not building products, I love to travel and experience different cultures. Here are a few moments from the road.

Maasai warriors performing traditional jumping dance in Kenya

Kenya

Arch of Constantine viewed from the Colosseum in Rome

Rome

Burj Khalifa lit up at night in Dubai

Dubai

Get in touch

Let's talk

I'm currently open to Product Owner and Business Analyst roles — if you're looking for someone who can bridge the business and the technology, get in touch.

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