Senior Product Owner, Data Insights

Simplesense builds, deploys, and sustains the Installation Resilience Platform that enables mission operators to rapidly adapt and respond. The Platform protects critical infrastructure from cyber attack while unlocking previously siloed information to monitor, diagnose, and improve response times to incidents. Our adversaries rapidly adopt the latest technology: we help defense users respond in kind. Simplesense is a non-traditional defense contractor and prime on the Air Force's Installation Resilience Operations Command and Control (IROC) program, which is now expanding to five additional Air Force, Space Force, and Army installations from the one prototype installation, Tyndall Air Force Base. Our team combines over 100 years of direct mission experience solving hard problems with 50 years technical expertise deploying DevSecOps, cybersecurity, and cloud infrastructure, giving us a deep appreciation for our customers’ mission and end users’ priorities. We build for scale, architecting and prioritizing technical work for long term sustainability.

Location

We prioritize candidates who reside in the Denver, CO metro area (hybrid as needed) but are open to exceptional remote talent. Locals: onsite as needed for collaborative workspace time. Remote: quarterly travel to hub locations for team syncs and alignment.

About the Role

As our Senior Product Owner, Data Insights, you will play a critical role in translating the strategic vision for actionable intelligence, user experience, and operational efficiency into clear, ready-to-build engineering plans. You will oversee the end-to-end delivery lifecycle for the Insights capability—converting raw data into actionable, human-readable interfaces and decision support tools—and partner closely with cross-functional technical teams to ensure our tactical execution remains aligned and capable of handling significant complexity.

Our Performance Culture

We measure performance across two key dimensions: How you perform your role (Our Core Values) and What your role entails (Your Execution).

How You’ll Work — Our Core Values

• People Always – Win as One Team: We foster a culture of psychological safety and mutual support. We operate as an integrated team where we assume noble intent as our default setting, ensuring that even the toughest feedback is rooted in trust. We trade our silos for a shared mission because collective impact always outweighs individual achievement.
• Empathize – Obsess Over the Customer: We don't just solve technical problems; we empathize and advocate for the operators using our products. We look beyond the surface to build what our customers—both internal and external—actually need to succeed, not just what they asked for.
• Focus – Ruthlessly Prioritize with Urgency: We focus on the highest-impact work and ruthlessly say no to distractions. We build resilient systems so that our solutions can repeat and scale under pressure.
• Let’s Go – Catalyze the Change You Seek: We don't wait for the industry to change; we drive it. We seek to understand why things are the way they are, but we never use “the way it’s always been” as an excuse. We aren't afraid to change course when the data or our mission demands it.

Responsibilities

• Advanced Backlog Refinement: Proactively translate complex, multi-system requirements into meticulously detailed, actionable engineering plans (epics, user stories, tasks), ensuring zero ambiguity for the technical team.
• Day-to-Day Delivery Anchor: Act as the first point of escalation for the engineering team, providing rapid, informed decisions to unblock work, clarify technical acceptance criteria, and maintain sprint momentum.
• Delivery Sequencing & Risk Management: Work intimately with Program Management to strategically sequence the team's work to meet critical contract commitments and high-stakes delivery milestones, proactively identifying and mitigating execution risks.
• Mentorship and Process Improvement: Elevate the team's output by establishing and enforcing best practices for story writing, acceptance testing, and definition of done. Provide guidance to junior colleagues and actively identify and fix process inefficiencies within the delivery pipeline.
• Cross-Functional Technical Alignment: Collaborate closely with the Engineering teams to ensure dependencies are managed, interfaces are clear, and the overall technical solution design aligns with long-term strategic architectural goals.
• Acceptance & Quality Gate: Serve as the final arbiter for validating that all delivered features meet defined technical specifications and functional requirements, ensuring a high-quality user experience (UI/UX) for the User Access Layer deliverables.

Requirements

• Extensive professional experience (5-10 years) in a dedicated Product Owner, Technical Product Manager, or similar execution-focused delivery role, preferably within a data, SaaS, or enterprise software environment.
• Proven expertise in leading technical teams through complex, multi-sprint delivery cycles using Agile methodologies.
• Demonstrated ability to translate highly technical concepts (e.g., data modeling, alerting logic, UI frameworks) into clear business value and actionable stories.
• Experience operating with minimal supervision and autonomously managing the execution plan for a core product capability.
• Ability to travel quarterly for team syncs and client Program Management Reviews (PMRs).
• Must be a U.S. Citizen and capable of obtaining a DoD NIPR network account and Common Access Card (CAC).
• Must have, or be able to obtain, a DoD Secret Clearance.

Qualifications

• Strongly prefer candidates residing in the Denver, CO metro area.
• Prior experience working within DoD, Air Force, Space Force, or fast-paced Federal contractor/dual-use startup environments.
• Deep knowledge of data visualization principles, real-time alerting systems, and/or operational intelligence platforms.
• Building control systems experience, particularly with the use of data to optimize building management and energy optimization.
• Professional certification in Agile methodologies (e.g., SAFe PO/PM, CSM/CSPO).

What Success Looks Like (First 90 Days)

• 30 Days: Establishing Technical Clarity and Process Boundaries. Your first month is dedicated to mastering our working structures, understanding the vision for the creation of actionable insights out of unstructured data.
• 60 Days: Operational Excellence. Shift from learning to enforcing high standards for "ready-to-build" engineering plans and managing cross-functional dependencies.
• 90 Days: Accountability and Impact. Transition into full ownership of the deployment schedule and long-term technical alignment.

Pay

Pay Range: $130k - $160k per year. Compensation is determined based on experience, skill level, and location. We review ranges regularly to ensure market competitiveness.

Benefits

• Competitive Benefits
• Equity
• Medical, Life, Short-Term Disability, and AD&D insurance
• Medical travel coverage
• Dental coverage
• Vision coverage
• 401k matching