Senior Product Owner, Product Development

About the role

As a Product Owner at Ascensus, you will be responsible for the roadmap and execution to carry out the vision for the assigned Program (Retirement, Government Savings, and Health Savings). The Product Owner is a member of an Agile team responsible for defining Stories and prioritizing the Team Backlog to streamline the execution of program priorities, while maintaining conceptual and technical integrity of the Features or components the team is responsible for. The ability to build relationships, influence, and drive execution in a fast-paced environment is critical to this role.

Responsibilities

• Creates and maintains the Scrum Team Roadmap (or multiple Scrum Team Roadmaps).
• Prioritizes and sequences the Backlog according to business value or ROI.
• Conveys the Vision and Goals at the beginning of every Release and Sprint.
• Represents the customer, interfaces, and engages the customer.
• Collaborates with a Scrum team on new Feature development, requests including building and maintaining a Product backlog, contributing to/reviewing/approving user stories, sprint support, and UAT testing.
• Where appropriate, works closely with BAs and Technology to create Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) stories.
• Assists with the elaboration of Epics, Themes, and Features into user stories that are granular enough to be achieved in a single sprint.
• Participates in the daily Scrums, Sprint Planning Meetings, Release Planning, Sprint Reviews, and Retrospectives.
• Inspects the product progress at the end of every Sprint and has complete authority to accept or reject work done.
• Assesses and changes the course of the project at the end of every Sprint as needed.
• Maintains relationships with the business and the client to understand the current and changing needs.
• Actively involved in Organizational readiness activities.
• Serves as the primary point person internally and externally for the team for updates and feedback.
• Identifies and maintains the KPIs needed to support the team and assigned product.
• Independently leads and manages complex projects and interactions with business partners.
• Stays informed on new technologies and pushes boundaries to introduce new and innovative solutions to build trust and exceed customer expectations and outcomes.
• Establishes annual goals, objectives, and outcomes for product(s); tracks and monitors key performance indicators.
• Provides critical leadership to drive the scrum team(s) without direct reports.
• Coaches and mentors other Product Owners and/or other Scrum Team members.
• Participates in steering Center of Practice meetings for business line and/or firm.

Requirements

• Undergraduate degree in business or technology-related fields.
• Advanced proficiency with Microsoft Office applications and a strong working knowledge of Agile and SDLC methodologies.
• Minimum 10 years’ experience in the assigned business domain: 401(k), IRA, 529, etc.
• Minimum 10 years’ experience as a Product Owner, or in a Technology (Dev or QA) practice.
• Demonstrated experience implementing and executing Agile principles with strong technical skills.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment; high quality of work that adheres to all standards, regulatory, and audit requirements.
• Strong consultative and well-articulated communication and writing skills with the ability to interact and influence at all levels of the organization.
• Demonstrated experience with facilitation, situational awareness, conflict resolution, change management, continual improvement, empowerment, and increasing transparency.
• Naturally curious, detail-oriented, with strong analytic and research skills.
• Knowledge and/or experience with Confluence, JIRA, Azure DevOps, and Aha! (Experience administering these applications is a plus).