Product Owner

As a Product Owner you will play a key role in product development projects by ensuring the organization's needs are articulated as user stories for the Agile Scrum teams. In this role you will practice the fundamentals of scope definition, requirements gathering, as well as system conceptual design. You will be responsible for taking the product's vision from management to defining scope; working with our UI/UX team to develop conceptual designs and understanding user experience and working with business analysts to create functional requirements. You will be focused on managing a development backlog and working collaboratively with your Scrum team to successfully deliver product releases. Additionally, our Product Owners assist in the development of our market-focused release notes to announce new features and provide additional analysis support for our Product management teams.

Responsibilities:

• Works closely with Product Managers/Leaders to stay connected to the needs of the users in order to enable them to articulate the business scenarios
• Plan and create an informed roadmap together with Product Managers/Leaders
• As a key member of a scrum team(s), responsible for continuously grooming the backlog and
• working directly with other Product Owners, Engineering, QA, and the program team to facilitate software development and remove roadblocks
• Prioritizes Release backlog and Sprint backlog to ensure stories are ordered in a logical manner, incorporating feedback from Engineering and Product Managers, taking into consideration dependencies and incremental development goals
• Participate in all sprint ceremonies, and lead grooming/backlog refinement meetings
• Triage bugs during development, and answers inquiries during production support
• Communicates the technical needs of end users, conducts initial requirement walk-throughs with scrum teams,
• Works with Business Analyst to clarify the intent of product backlog items on a daily basis through each sprint, works directly with all members of the Scrum Team with close consideration of cross domain topics
• Proactively makes decisions on behalf of the Product Managers to unblock Scrum Teams
• Escalates questions or issues to Product Managers and PMO as needed
• Performs/Leads User Acceptance Testing (UAT), where applicable
• Works directly with Business Analysts to distribute work as needed
• Responsible for the success of the release
• Problem articulation – no solutioning or implementation – use the teams to help with defining solutions through collaboration
• Use trusted methods – Story mapping, user stories, acceptance criteria, process workflows
• The individual in this role will have the opportunity to gain a large breadth of knowledge by working with experts in the fields of talent management, work and rewards, compensation, employee engagement, workforce analytics, etc. Our Product Owners are empowered to make key product decisions using their research and understanding of the industry to build best in class solutions.

Requirements:

• 5+ years of experience in product development activities
• At least 3 years experience in the Product Owner role
• Requires strong product discovery, business analysis, requirements gathering, webpage workflow, and writing skills
• Experience working in Agile Development environment
• Skilled at working with stakeholders to drive decision points and resolutions
• Self-starter and curious attitude with ability to work well within ambiguity
• Adeptness at learning new technology and tools
• Detail oriented, strong analytical thinker, capable of making key decisions based on solid research and knowledge of the industry
• Demonstrated ability to dig deep, and yet be able to multi-task and work on virtual teams
• Process driven with ability to modify approach
• Excellent time management and ability to meet deadlines
• Ability to work effectively as an independent contributor or as part of a broader team
• BS / BA degree or relevant experience
• Verifiable high-competency when it comes to stakeholder management, capable of challenging the norm and driving discussions focused on clear problem understanding as well as possible solutions.
• Experience in ensuring teams uphold the highest standards and effectiveness in delivering product roadmap and vision.
• Demonstrated ability to work on virtual global teams, helping navigate the challenges being a global team. Promoting the vision of being 'ONE TEAM' for all global resources.
• Possess high emotional intelligence, self-awareness, empathy and motivating colleagues is required.
• Excellent verbal and writing skills, including the ability to effectively communicate to non-technical and technical team members and leaders.
• Proactively provide status on team successes, challenges and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Strong work ethic is a must.
• Experience working on both new enhancement and maintenance software development projects.
• Experience working with collaboration and issue tracking tools such as Confluence and JIRA.