Product Owner

About the role

The Product Owner drives product vision and strategy, aligns business goals with product outcomes, and maximizes value delivery through agile, value‑driven practices.

Responsibilities

• Define and communicate the product vision, goals, and roadmap aligned with business strategy and market opportunities.
• Act as product sponsor, making strategic investment and prioritization decisions based on business value.
• Own and manage the product backlog, prioritizing features, enhancements, defects, and technical debt.
• Define clear acceptance criteria and business outcomes to guide development efforts.
• Collaborate closely with business leaders, customers, engineering, quality engineering, and operations teams.
• Facilitate continuous stakeholder engagement to gather and validate requirements.
• Lead agile delivery ceremonies, including sprint planning, backlog refinement, reviews, and release planning.
• Support delivery teams by clarifying requirements and validating completed features.
• Make final Go/No‑Go decisions for major releases when required.
• Monitor product performance, customer adoption, and KPIs; ensure compliance with governance, security, and quality standards.
• Drive continuous improvement, innovation initiatives, and value‑driven delivery in an agile environment.
• Utilize product management tools such as Jira or Azure DevOps to manage roadmaps and backlogs effectively.
• Apply strong stakeholder management and communication skills to align priorities and communicate progress and risks.
• Make data‑driven decisions informed by metrics and customer feedback.
• Demonstrate expertise across the Life Annuity Insurance value chain (New Business, Underwriting, Policy Administration, Billing, Claims, Servicing).
• Lead customer journey mapping, business process assessments, and discovery workshops to identify challenges, opportunities, and transformation objectives.
• Analyze and document end‑to‑end business transactions, process flows, data flows, and operational dependencies across business and technology landscapes.
• Identify process gaps, testing gaps, environment constraints, and test‑data challenges that impact delivery quality and outcomes.
• Drive cross‑functional collaboration with business SMEs, product teams, architects, development teams, QE teams, and operations stakeholders to define optimal solutions.
• Establish and govern delivery plans, milestones, dependencies, risks, and remediation actions using Agile and Jira‑based portfolio management practices.
• Define and execute roadmap‑driven initiatives, ensuring objectives are met through structured planning, execution, governance, and outcome tracking.
• Provide executive‑level status reporting, risk assessments, decision support, and progress updates to client leadership and program stakeholders.
• Exhibit exceptional stakeholder management, facilitation, negotiation, and influencing skills across business and technology leadership teams.

Qualifications

• Strong expertise in the Life Annuity Insurance value chain, including underwriting, policy administration, billing, claims, and servicing.
• Proven experience leading agile product delivery and managing product backlogs, epics, features, and user stories.
• Hands‑on proficiency with product management tools such as Jira or Azure DevOps.
• Excellent stakeholder management, communication, facilitation, negotiation, and influencing abilities.
• Ability to make data‑driven decisions using metrics, KPIs, and customer feedback.
• Experience conducting customer journey mapping, business process assessments, and discovery workshops.
• Strong analytical skills to document end‑to‑end business transactions, process flows, and data dependencies.
• Capability to identify and mitigate process, testing, and environment constraints.

Compensation

This position includes a variable compensation component (bonus or payout) based on individual and organizational performance. Actual compensation within the advertised range depends on skills, experience, performance, and internal equity. The salary range reflects minimum and maximum targets across all U.S. locations, with individual pay determined by work location, job level, and relevant factors.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical plan covering medical, dental, and vision
• Short‑term and long‑term disability coverage
• 401(k) plan with company match
• Life insurance
• Vacation time, sick leave, and paid holidays
• Paid paternity and maternity leave