The Product Owner Role in Practice: A Triangulation of Industry Expectations, Activities, and Soft Skills in Brazil

The Product Owner (PO) role has become increasingly central in agile software development, acting as a bridge between business, technology, and users. Despite its relevance, there is still limited empirical evidence on how this role is defined and enacted in the Brazilian industry. This study presents a multi-source comparative analysis between PO job postings and professionals’ perceptions, aiming to identify convergences and misalignments between industry expectations and real-world practice. To achieve this, 202 job postings targeting Product Owner positions were analyzed, alongside 25 responses from professionals working in or related to the role. In addition, a Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) was conducted, identifying 33 soft skills associated with the PO role. The results reveal that the Brazilian industry strongly emphasizes mid-to-senior profiles, multidisciplinary backgrounds, and technology-driven sectors, reinforcing the strategic and integrative nature of the role. From an operational perspective, the findings highlight that Product Owners are primarily engaged in coordination-intensive activities, such as backlog prioritization, stakeholder communication, and collaboration with cross-functional teams. However, the analysis also uncovers a relevant gap between expected and actual tool usage, particularly regarding data-driven decision-making tools, which are frequently required but less adopted in practice. Regarding soft skills, communication, analytical thinking, teamwork, leadership, and negotiation emerge as core competencies consistently highlighted across job postings and professional perceptions. At the same time, several skills identified in the literature—such as ethics, feedback, and trust—are rarely made explicit in job descriptions, suggesting that they are treated as implicit expectations. Furthermore, variability in the perceived importance of skills such as leadership and adaptability indicates that their relevance may depend on contextual and organizational factors. Overall, the results reveal a partially misaligned scenario in which the PO role is broadly defined, highly flexible, and often ambiguous, combining strategic, operational, and relational responsibilities. These findings contribute to advancing the understanding of the PO role in the Brazilian context, highlighting the need for clearer role definitions, better alignment between market expectations and professional practice, and more structured approaches to the development and evaluation of soft skills in agile environments.