Product Owner

Job Title: Product Owner

Location: Remote

Duration: 6+ Months

Job Description

Job Profile Summary:

The Product Owner (IT) at Strategic Education Inc. (SEI) is a key role within the IT team. The role is the intersection between business, technology, and user experience. The Product Owner s role is to own the product roadmap and backlog priorities. The PO works collaboratively with the team and stakeholders to clearly define goals and objectives for initiatives and sprints to ensure work alignment continually delivers business value.

The PO works closely with cross-functional teams, stakeholders and leadership to execute on the product vision to create an exceptional user experience.

Job Description:

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Product Vision & Strategy Alignment

• Translate the product vision and high-level strategy into a clear, actionable product backlog.
• Ensure that backlog priorities reflect business goals, customer needs, and technical considerations.
• Collaborate closely with Stakeholders to align sprint work with the long-term roadmap.

Backlog Ownership

• Own and maintain the product backlog, continuously refining, updating, and prioritizing items.
• Write clear and detailed user stories with well-defined acceptance criteria.
• Break down epics and complex features into actionable, sprint-sized deliverables.
• Drive product discovery with team leads and/or stakeholders to define scope (through story mapping) and slicing out work in smaller chunks (journeys) to determine launch line for rapid learning.

Sprint Execution & Delivery Support

• Lead backlog refinement and participate/lead actively in all Scrum ceremonies (planning, stand-ups, reviews, retrospectives).
• Provide day-to-day guidance to developers and testers, clarifying requirements and removing ambiguity.
• Accept or reject completed stories based on acceptance criteria and product standards.
• Develop detailed product features and requirements, and create implementation plans with team.

Stakeholder Collaboration

• Gather input from internal stakeholders to ensure alignment and transparency.
• Communicate roadmap changes, sprint progress, risks, and trade-offs clearly and proactively.

Quality & Risk Management

• Ensure that delivered features meet functional requirements, quality standards, and user expectations.
• Identify potential risks, blockers, and dependencies early and work with cross-functional teams to resolve them.

Cross-Functional Coordination

• Lead a cross-functional team of UX/UI designers, developers and QA without any direct reports.
• Work closely with UX/UI designers to provide feedback on wireframes, prototypes, and user flows.
• Coordinate with IT to understand technical feasibility, dependencies, and constraints.
• Train internal stakeholder on new features and delivered functionality

Job Skills:

Product & Business Skills

• Strong understanding of product lifecycle management and customer value creation
• Ability to assess value, develop use cases, and prioritize stories, epics and themes to ensure work focuses on those with maximum value that are aligned with product strategy.
• Expertise in discovery and mapping exercises to evaluate the best solution to problem definition
• Ability to translate business goals and user needs into actionable requirements
• Ability to balance user value, business impact, and technical constraints
• Familiarity with KPIs, metrics, and data-driven decision-making

Agile & Delivery Skills

• Deep knowledge of Agile/Scrum principles, practices, and ceremonies
• Experience writing user stories and acceptance criteria
• Direct hands-on experience with grooming product backlogs and coordinating/prioritizing conflicting requirements.
• Ability to break large initiatives into clear, incremental deliverables
• Competence in managing scope, dependencies, and iterative delivery

Technical & Analytical Skills

• Basic understanding of software development concepts (APIs, data flows, architecture, integrations)
• Ability to discuss trade-offs with technical team and understand technical constraints

Communication & Collaboration Skills

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to convey complex concepts clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Strong facilitation skills for refinement, planning, and review sessions
• Ability to manage expectations and communicate risk, scope, and trade-offs confidently
• Skilled at building relationships across IT and business teams

Leadership & Ownership Skills

• Strong sense of ownership and accountability for outcomes
• Strong execution skills, work with a high degree of autonomy.
• Ability to drive alignment across cross-functional teams
• Skilled at navigating differing opinions and resolving conflicts constructively
• Comfort in a fast-paced, ever-changing and sometimes ambiguous, work environment.

Customer & UX Skills

• Basic understanding of UX principles and user journey mapping
• Ability to interpret customer feedback and convert it into actionable insights
• Familiarity working with UX/UI designers on workflows, prototypes, and feature scoping

Work Experience:

• 5+ years in a Product Owner or similar role
• Experience in product management and working on an Agile team where they have delivered a product to production, preferably at a high scale.

Education:

From an accredited institution; Bachelor s degree required (or equivalent experience in IT). MBA preferred.

Certificates, licenses and registrations:

CSPO, PSPO, SAFe POPM, PMI-ACP, ICP-APO certifications are a plus

With Regards,

Dinesh B

CS Solutions, Inc

7525 Mitchell Road, Suite 106, Eden Prairie, MN 55344

Email ID -

Direct Number