Product Owner

The Product Owner is the accountable product leader for one or more agile delivery teams. They ensure customer and business needs are clearly understood, translated into actionable requirements, and successfully delivered through high-quality product increments. Acting as the feature authority, they collaborate with Senior Product Owners, Product Managers, architects, UX, Client Services, and engineering to maximize product value. The Product Owner owns the backlog, drives user-story clarity and prioritization, and ensures alignment with product strategy while guiding the team through successful delivery.

Must Have

• Continuously gather, analyze, and synthesize customer needs, business context, and feedback to shape product direction and story detail
• Translate customer problems and stakeholder requirements into actionable user stories and clear acceptance criteria
• Partner with UX and research to validate concepts, ensure clarity on customer value, and provide the team with context and real-world examples
• Present features to the team, clearly explaining the business or client need, expected outcomes, and scope before development begins
• Own and prioritize the product backlog, balancing new features, defects, and technical enablement work
• Receive Feature Solution Documents (FSDs) and expand them into detailed user stories, team-level dependencies, and testable acceptance criteria
• Prepare and deliver feature introductions to the team, including functional requirements, value statements, and scope boundaries
• Decompose features into workable user stories in partnership with architects, UX, and engineering
• Maintain and update FSDs and system documentation to reflect changes in scope, architecture, or implementation
• Create and refine enablement stories with support from team architects and Scrum Masters
• Participate actively in all agile ceremonies, including: Daily Scrum, Backlog Refinement, Iteration Planning, Iteration Reviews / Demos, Team Retrospectives, Story-level working sessions, Program Increment (PI) Planning
• Lead iteration planning for assigned team(s), providing story detail, priorities, and clarification needed for estimation
• Provide just-in-time story elaboration during development
• Serve as the real-time point of contact for team questions, following up with stakeholders when clarification is required
• Adjust backlog priorities based on direction from Senior Product Owners or Product Managers, ensuring alignment before reprioritizing
• Coordinate with other teams when cross-team dependencies emerge or story changes impact other components
• Participate in feature review sessions with other Product Owners, UX, Product Managers, and internal stakeholders to align on solution direction and design
• Act as a representative of the team in cross-functional discussions, gathering action items and feeding back guidance to the team
• Review and validate feature solutions and design documents prior to development
• Ensure the team leverages valid test data, UI designs, and architectural patterns
• With architectural support, update the System DEG (documentation) and inform stakeholders of major system changes prior to release
• Review quarterly release notes and feature overviews for accuracy
• Participate in system demos and contribute to release readiness discussions
• Validate that completed stories meet acceptance criteria and deliver the intended customer or business value
• Attend and review team demos each iteration; provide final story acceptance
• For cross-team features, ensure that the team’s component integrates and functions as intended
• Involve other POs or team leads in acceptance demos when needed for cross-functional validation
• Work with teams to identify and implement improvement stories to increase velocity, predictability, and quality
• Understand how AI and ML tools can streamline product discovery, requirement generation, test automation, release quality, and workflow efficiency
• Ideally possess hands-on experience implementing or evaluating AI-enabled tooling within product or development teams
• Introduce AI-based improvements where appropriate, ensuring responsible and ethical use aligned with compliance requirements
• Build trusted relationships across Product, Engineering, Architecture, Client Services, QA, and other internal/external stakeholders
• Communicate progress, risks, scope changes, and system impacts clearly and proactively
• Represent the team in design reviews, discovery discussions, and solutioning workshops
• Facilitate alignment across teams and escalate feature/story changes when necessary

Good to Have

• Ideally possess hands-on experience implementing or evaluating AI-enabled tooling within product or development teams
• Introduce AI-based improvements where appropriate, ensuring responsible and ethical use aligned with compliance requirements
• Experience with JSON-based APIs, .NET, Angular, or mobile technologies is preferred
• B2C and B2B product experience preferred
• CSPO certification is preferred (required if aligning with PO-II expectations)

The Product Owner is the accountable product leader for one or more agile delivery teams. They ensure customer and business needs are clearly understood, translated into actionable requirements, and successfully delivered through high-quality product increments. Acting as the feature authority, they collaborate with Senior Product Owners, Product Managers, architects, UX, Client Services, and engineering to maximize product value. The Product Owner owns the backlog, drives user-story clarity and prioritization, and ensures alignment with product strategy while guiding the team through successful delivery.

We are looking for a Product Owner who will:

• Continuously gather, analyze, and synthesize customer needs, business context, and feedback to shape product direction and story detail.
• Translate customer problems and stakeholder requirements into actionable user stories and clear acceptance criteria.
• Partner with UX and research to validate concepts, ensure clarity on customer value, and provide the team with context and real-world examples.
• Present features to the team, clearly explaining the business or client need, expected outcomes, and scope before development begins.
• Own and prioritize the product backlog, balancing new features, defects, and technical enablement work.
• Receive Feature Solution Documents (FSDs) and expand them into detailed user stories, team-level dependencies, and testable acceptance criteria.
• Prepare and deliver feature introductions to the team, including functional requirements, value statements, and scope boundaries.
• Decompose features into workable user stories in partnership with architects, UX, and engineering.
• Maintain and update FSDs and system documentation to reflect changes in scope, architecture, or implementation.
• Create and refine enablement stories with support from team architects and Scrum Masters.
• Participate actively in all agile ceremonies, including: Daily Scrum, Backlog Refinement (including leading refinement sessions each iteration), Iteration Planning, Iteration Reviews / Demos, Team Retrospectives, Story-level working sessions, Program Increment (PI) Planning
• Lead iteration planning for assigned team(s), providing story detail, priorities, and clarification needed for estimation.
• Provide just-in-time story elaboration during development.
• Serve as the real-time point of contact for team questions, following up with stakeholders when clarification is required.
• Adjust backlog priorities based on direction from Senior Product Owners or Product Managers, ensuring alignment before reprioritizing.
• Coordinate with other teams when cross-team dependencies emerge or story changes impact other components.
• Participate in feature review sessions with other Product Owners, UX, Product Managers, and internal stakeholders to align on solution direction and design.
• Act as a representative of the team in cross-functional discussions, gathering action items and feeding back guidance to the team.
• Review and validate feature solutions and design documents prior to development.
• Ensure the team leverages valid test data, UI designs, and architectural patterns.
• With architectural support, update the System DEG (documentation) and inform stakeholders of major system changes prior to release.
• Review quarterly release notes and feature overviews for accuracy.
• Participate in system demos and contribute to release readiness discussions.
• Validate that completed stories meet acceptance criteria and deliver the intended customer or business value.
• Attend and review team demos each iteration; provide final story acceptance.
• For cross-team features, ensure that the team’s component integrates and functions as intended.
• Involve other POs or team leads in acceptance demos when needed for cross-functional validation.
• Work with teams to identify and implement improvement stories to increase velocity, predictability, and quality.
• Understand how AI and ML tools can streamline product discovery, requirement generation, test automation, release quality, and workflow efficiency.
• Ideally possess hands-on experience implementing or evaluating AI-enabled tooling within product or development teams.
• Introduce AI-based improvements where appropriate, ensuring responsible and ethical use aligned with compliance requirements.
• Build trusted relationships across Product, Engineering, Architecture, Client Services, QA, and other internal/external stakeholders.
• Communicate progress, risks, scope changes, and system impacts clearly and proactively.
• Represent the team in design reviews, discovery discussions, and solutioning workshops.
• Facilitate alignment across teams and escalate feature/story changes when necessary.

Is this opportunity right for you? We are looking for candidates who:

• Minimum 3–5 years of IT experience.
• 3+ years of Product Owner, Scrum Master, or equivalent experience (PO-specific experience preferred).
• Strong capability in customer discovery, user story creation, acceptance criteria definition, and backlog management.
• Ability to translate business needs into technical requirements and articulate value clearly.
• Familiarity with system integrations, APIs, data flows, and architectural patterns.
• Deep experience with agile delivery, including leading backlog refinement, prioritisation, planning, and demo/acceptance cycles.
• Ability to guide teams through ambiguity and maintain clarity under changing priorities.
• Comfortable collaborating across remote and distributed teams.
• Excellent communication and facilitation skills.
• Ability to influence without authority, manage strong personalities, and drive alignment across diverse groups.
• Strong documentation and analytical skills.
• Understanding of AI tooling and how it can enhance product workflows.
• Experience with JSON-based APIs, .NET, Angular, or mobile technologies is preferred.
• Bachelor’s degree in business, technology, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Experience delivering medium to large-scale software solutions into production.
• B2C and B2B product experience preferred.
• CSPO certification is preferred (required if aligning with PO-II expectations).
• Adherence to relevant legal, compliance, security, and regulatory requirements (Bank Secrecy Act, card association rules, corporate policies).
• Ability to read, write, speak and understand the English language in a business environment