Our Client is one of the United States’ largest insurers, providing a wide range of insurance and financial services products with gross written premium well over US$25 Billion (P&C). They proudly serve more than 10 million U.S. households with more than 19 million individual policies across all 50 states through the efforts of over 48,000 exclusive and independent agents and nearly 18,500 employees. Finally, our Client is part of one the largest Insurance Groups in the world.
Job Summary
Takes a fully independent lead in several areas of product development by following the principles of Agile to manage the team backlog, anticipate and prioritize needs, oversee development stages, act as a primary liaison and evaluate product progress. Serves as the customer proxy; works collaboratively with business owners and other stakeholders to accomplish these tasks with little to no support with a high volume of work and increased complexity. Utilizes strong understanding of the business vision to to regularly contribute and manage execution. Heavily influences the business owner's requirements, the Product Manager's program vision and roadmap while introducing new and useful tools and practices to drive continuous improvement. Provides overall leadership to Product Owner team through mentorship and guidance and provides back up to Product Manager, as needed.
Essential Job Functions
- Applies basic scientific practice within iterations in order to routinely plan, do, check and adjust.
- Manages team backlog items and prioritizes based on business value.
- Outlines dependencies and informs stakeholders the necessary sequence of development to ensure optimized performance and outcomes.
- Holds a significant role in quality control and is the primary team member empowered to accept stories as done.
- Utilizes advanced business knowledge, based on prior experience within business function, and communication skills to anticipate problems and address them accordingly.
- Works cross functionally in a self-organizing manner to accomplish tasks and effectively manage the backlog.
- Leads processes and procedure changes identified by teams by working with external business partners.
- Effectively applies critical thinking to identify flexibility in determining how and when each iteration and product element will be developed.
- Acts as primary communicator and connection between stakeholders, end users and teams determining if each story meets their shared expectations.
- Ensures collaboration from all stakeholders on decisions and strategy providing clear instructions and deliverables for developers.
- Takes ownership for each stage of the process and final product to ensure the goal and vision are correctly aligned with the work items on the backlog.
- Contributes strategic input into the prioritization of the program backlog, coordinates dependencies and manages the inspection and evaluation of product progress through each iteration.
- Drives the mitigation of program risks. Leads PO and/or ART sync meetings in addition to the system demo to show critical aspects of the solution.
- Leads in Inspect & Adapt (I&A) workshop to work across teams to define and implement improvement stories to increase program quality.
- A key member of the Agile team who utilizes perspective to define iteration goals and drives execution and delivery.
- Partners with the business owner to understand needs, manage scope and add/eliminate user stories while contributing heavy influence to build an effective strategy.
- Communicates requirements to Agile Team in a clear and collaborative manner to determine new requirements, negotiate teams and dependencies.
- Regularly interacts closely with the Product Manager in order to discuss goals and vision of the business/value stream, sharing extensive knowledge in order to make sound decisions.
- Heavily involved in the Program Increment (PI) planning, story definition and assists team with story estimates and sequencing.
- Oversees the development of the product to include planning, refinement, review, and execution.
- Partners with stakeholders to identify and organize steps required for next iteration.
- Works to gain clarity on queries and participate in the demo of committed items.
- Participates in ceremonies within the team to coordinate efforts with team to refine the process, identify areas for improvement and support the execution of tasks.
- Continuously keeps the end-user needs in mind based on higher level of business acumen to ensure the solution meets expectations and the development delivers expected outcomes from the accepted stories.
- Independently represents business owners' interest and prioritize user stories based on business value while maximizing agile team's capacity.
- Provides mentorship and guidance to PO I and II. Performs other duties as assigned.
Requirements
• Bachelor's degree preferred.
• Product Owner, Scrum Master, or Product Manager Certified.
• 3-5 years of experience in a Product Owner role
• 3-5 years experience in an Agile environment
• Demonstrated leadership experience (influencing and guiding, not necessarily people manager)
• Fluent English
• Insurance experience preferred
Software/Tools
• Office Suite
• Microsoft Excel
• Rally (or equivalent, such as Jira) – Advanced (4-6 Years)
Skills
• Strategic Planning
• Stakeholder Analysis & Alignment
• Prioritization
• Change Management
• Communication
• Leadership
• Critical Thinking/Decision Making
• Collaboration
• Prioritization of Work
Benefits
- Competitive salary and performance-based bonuses
- Comprehensive benefits package
- Career development and training opportunities
- Flexible work arrangements (remote and/or office-based)
- Dynamic and inclusive work culture within a globally renowned group
- Private Health Insurance
- Pension Plan
- Paid Time Off
- Training & Development
Note: Benefits differ based on employee level.
