Product Owner 4 (Citizens Only)

Job Description:

We are seeking a highly skilled and engaged Senior Product Owner to lead backlog strategy, customer discovery, and delivery execution for a software development team operating within an Agile delivery model. This role is ideal for a strong practitioner who models best in class Product Ownership and acts as a change agent to uplift delivery discipline, customer focus, and Agile maturity across the portfolio.

The Senior Product Owner owns the team backlog, ensures clarity and readiness of work, represents the customer, and drives consistent delivery of high value outcomes aligned with business and portfolio priorities. This role is hybrid and requires regular onsite time with customers, business partners, and delivery teams.

Key Responsibilities

Backlog Ownership & Delivery

• Own, maintain, and continuously refine the delivery team s backlog to align with established priorities and highest value outcomes.
• Translate business and portfolio priorities into clear, actionable user stories and acceptance criteria.
• Ensure backlog items are sufficiently detailed, well understood, and ready before sprint work begins.
• Lead backlog refinement and actively participate in sprint planning, reviews/demos, and other Agile ceremonies.
• Act as the content authority for the team, providing timely answers, direction, and decisions.
• Identify and manage upstream/downstream dependencies and drive alignment with adjacent product teams.
• Collaborate with architects to ensure backlog items adhere to enterprise architecture requirements.

Customer Discovery & Validation

• Engage directly and regularly with customers and end users to understand real workflows, pain points, and operational needs.
• Spend meaningful onsite time at customer/worksites to observe how work is performed and identify improvement opportunities.
• Serve as the voice of the customer within the delivery team, ensuring all work aligns with true business value.
• Validate completed work with customers and gather feedback to confirm the solution meets the intended need.
• Use feedback and delivery results to refine future backlog items and continuously improve product outcomes.
• Conduct continuous discovery activities (interviews, surveys, workflow observation) to uncover evolving customer needs.

Agile Leadership & Collaboration

• Build strong, collaborative relationships with developers, testers, architects, business stakeholders, and customers.
• Model strong SAFe/Agile Product Owner behaviors and help uplift PO capability across the portfolio.
• Promote backlog discipline, transparency, effective customer engagement, and continuous improvement.
• Maintain an Agile team culture aligned with organizational values and modern delivery practices.
• Comfortably lead and empower team members without formal management authority.
• Identify risks, unclear requirements, or delivery issues early and work proactively to resolve them.

Strategic Thinking & Decision Making

• Bring a data driven approach to prioritization, trade offs, and decision making.
• Influence stakeholders at all levels of the organization, including senior leaders.
• Deliver on specific and measurable OKRs and KPIs.
• Work effectively with ambiguous requirements and multi disciplinary teams.
• Learn, adapt, and thrive in a fast paced, collaborative, and change heavy environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Proven experience as a Product Owner in a software development environment, ideally at a senior level.
• SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager (POPM) or Certified Product Owner certification.
• Demonstrated success owning and refining Agile delivery team backlogs.
• Experience collaborating directly with customers and end users.
• Strong facilitation, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
• Being comfortable leading, directing, and empowering team members without formal management authority.
• Experience working with developers, testers, and architects.
• Large enterprise experience preferred.
• SAP experience desired but not required.
• Azure DevOps experience preferred