Salesforce Product Owner

About the role

The Salesforce Product Owner serves as the critical bridge between business stakeholders in assigned university divisions and the technical development teams within the Patriot Connect / Salesforce Center of Excellence. This role ensures that Salesforce solutions are effectively designed, prioritized, and delivered to support institutional processes and student success outcomes across the full student lifecycle.

Responsibilities

• Product Backlog Management & Agile Delivery:
  • Own, maintain, and continuously groom the product backlog for assigned functional area(s) within the Salesforce ecosystem;
  • Translate business needs into clear, well-scoped user stories with well-defined acceptance criteria, ensuring items are properly sized and sprint-ready;
  • Continuously prioritize backlog items based on business value, technical feasibility, regulatory requirements, and strategic alignment;
  • Collaborate with business analysts to ensure comprehensive and accurate requirements documentation;
  • Participate actively in all Agile ceremonies: sprint planning, daily standups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives;
  • Provide real-time clarification on requirements and make timely product decisions during active development cycles;
  • Conduct or support user acceptance testing to confirm deliverables meet defined business expectations and acceptance criteria;
  • Manage intake processes using tools such as Agile Accelerator, Jira, Azure DevOps, etc., to track requests from submission through delivery.
• Stakeholder Engagement & Requirements:
  • Serve as the primary liaison between assigned functional unit(s) and the Patriot Connect product management team;
  • Conduct regular meetings with department heads, staff, and end users to understand business needs, pain points, and process improvement opportunities;
  • Facilitate requirements gathering sessions, workshops, user story mapping exercises, and process walkthroughs;
  • Build and maintain strong working relationships with key stakeholders to ensure ongoing collaboration, transparency, and buy-in;
  • Communicate product updates, release plans, sprint outcomes, and roadmap changes clearly to functional unit leadership and end users;
  • Advise stakeholders on Salesforce platform capabilities, best practices, constraints, and tradeoffs to support informed decision-making;
  • Champion user-centered design principles and advocate for optimal end-user experience in all solution decisions;
  • Support change management efforts within assigned functional areas, including documentation of process changes and readiness activities.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration & Platform Alignment:
  • Collaborate actively with fellow Product Owners to contribute to the unified Salesforce platform roadmap maintained by the Head of Product Management;
  • Participate in regular product management team meetings to align priorities, resolve cross-functional conflicts, and maintain cohesive platform direction;
  • Coordinate cross-functional features and integrations that span multiple university divisions or Salesforce clouds;
  • Partner with solution architects to validate technical approaches, integration design decisions, and long-term scalability considerations;
  • Collaborate with IT teams on data integration, security, compliance, and identity requirements affecting assigned functional areas;
  • Work with the data and analytics team to define success measures, track adoption and usage, and identify opportunities for platform improvement;
  • Balance competing functional unit needs and participate in trade-off decisions that benefit the overall platform strategy.
• User Experience & Process Optimization:
  • Analyze current business processes within assigned functional areas and identify opportunities for improvement through Salesforce solutions;
  • Conduct user research, gather stakeholder feedback, and synthesize findings to inform ongoing product decisions and backlog prioritization;
  • Document and communicate process changes resulting from new system implementations or enhancements;
  • Support training and adoption efforts for new features and functionality, partnering with change management and training resources as needed;
  • Monitor post-release outcomes including adoption rates, efficiency gains, and user satisfaction to inform future prioritization.
• Platform & Domain Knowledge Development:
  • Maintain current knowledge of Salesforce platform capabilities, Education Cloud updates, and Salesforce release cycles that affect assigned functional areas;
  • Stay informed on higher education trends, student lifecycle best practices, and relevant regulatory requirements (e.g., FERPA, ADA);
  • Participate in Salesforce community events, training, and certification activities as appropriate to the role.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in related field, or the equivalent combination of education and experience;
• Considerable experience in a Product Owner, Business Analyst, or related product or technology delivery role;
• Demonstrated experience writing user stories, defining acceptance criteria, and managing a product backlog in an Agile or iterative delivery environment;
• Experience working directly with business stakeholders to gather requirements, facilitate workshops, and translate needs into actionable technical specifications;
• Experience collaborating within cross-functional teams including developers, architects, QA, and business representatives;
• Experience using Agile delivery tools such as Jira, Azure DevOps, Smartsheet, or equivalent platforms;
• Knowledge of product ownership principles and practices, including backlog management, user story writing, acceptance criteria definition, and sprint-based delivery;
• Knowledge of Agile and Scrum methodologies, including familiarity with standard ceremonies (sprint planning, standups, reviews, retrospectives) and team roles;
• Knowledge of Salesforce platform capabilities and core functionality sufficient to engage meaningfully with development teams and architect discussions;
• Knowledge of higher education business processes, particularly within the student lifecycle (e.g., recruitment, admissions, advising, coaching, student success, event management, or case management);
• Skill in translating complex business requirements into clear, actionable user stories and technical specifications accessible to both business and technical audiences;
• Skill in facilitating meetings, requirements workshops, and collaborative working sessions with diverse stakeholder groups;
• Skill in backlog prioritization and trade-off analysis, balancing business value, technical feasibility, and strategic alignment;
• Skill in communicating product decisions, release updates, and roadmap changes to stakeholders at varying levels of technical and institutional familiarity;
• Ability to build and sustain productive relationships across diverse university constituencies including administrative departments, academic units, and IT teams;
• Ability to make timely, well-reasoned product decisions under conditions of ambiguity or competing priorities;
• Ability to work effectively within a matrixed organization alongside peer Product Owners, architects, and a Head of Product Management;
• Knowledge of and ability to use product and project management tools such as Jira, Azure DevOps, or Smartsheet to manage intake, backlog readiness, and delivery tracking;
• Ability to support user acceptance testing and validate that delivered solutions meet defined acceptance criteria and business objectives.

Preferred Qualifications

• Salesforce Business Analyst Certification;
• Salesforce Administrator Certification;
• Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) or equivalent Agile/product management certification;
• Salesforce Education Cloud accreditation or relevant Salesforce Trailhead superbadges;
• Significant experience in a Product Owner, Senior Business Analyst, or CRM product leadership role within a Salesforce or comparable enterprise technology environment;
• Experience in higher education or a similarly complex, service-oriented organization, particularly where CRM platforms support large and diverse user populations across multiple departments;
• Hands-on experience working with Salesforce, including direct involvement in configuration, testing, or release activities (not required to administer);
• Experience contributing to or owning a Salesforce product roadmap across multiple departments or functional areas;
• Experience working in a Center of Excellence or enterprise CRM governance model, including participation in intake, governance forums, or roadmap reviews;
• Experience influencing product direction or presenting recommendations at the leadership level;
• Experience supporting or leading change management, training, or adoption activities associated with technology implementations;
• Familiarity with the Salesforce release cycle and how managed package updates, platform upgrades, and new feature releases affect CRM operations;
• Knowledge of Salesforce Education Cloud, Service Cloud, or Experience Cloud, particularly in higher education deployment contexts;
• Knowledge of cross-cloud Salesforce use cases and how integrations, data platforms, and downstream systems influence CRM product design;
• Knowledge of higher education regulations and compliance requirements relevant to student data and institutional systems, including FERPA and ADA;
• Knowledge of enterprise data, analytics, or reporting concepts used to measure adoption, service quality, or platform effectiveness;
• Skill in customer journey mapping, user experience analysis, and applying user-centered design principles to CRM product decisions;
• Skill in presenting product recommendations and facilitating roadmap discussions at leadership or governance levels;
• Ability to operate strategically while remaining grounded in delivery realities, sprint-level execution, and platform constraints;
• Ability to influence without direct authority across technical teams, functional stakeholders, and leadership;
• Ability to identify and articulate platform-level dependencies, integration risks, and architectural tradeoffs in coordination with solution architects.