Senior Product Owner

Job Description

Don’t just dream about What’s Next – build it!

Nexient specializes in bringing a “Product Mindset” to our work, using small, nimble teams, Agile thinking and other techniques from product development to build great custom software people love to use.

And as America’s leading 100% US, 100% Agile software services partner, we’re building it here instead of sending tech jobs offshore.

People are noticing.

Our clients include some of America’s favorite brands in retail, healthcare, financial services and more – but also some very cool product companies you may not have heard of yet. We’re recognized as a Gartner Cool Vendor, HfS Hot Vendor and the only 100% US tech company in the World’s Top 100 Outsourcers. You might have read about us in The New York Times .

Nexient combines:

• Silicon Valley innovation (through our Bay Area innovation hub, and network of startups and emerging technology partners)
• Scalable, Midwest delivery (with 65+ Agile teams in high talent cities like Ann Arbor, Michigan)
• Onsite collaboration (with product managers and other key roles working face-to-face with client teams around the country)

Nexient is looking for an experienced and savvy Senior Product Owners to join our team!

Come build with us!

Position Summary:

We are seeking an experienced Senior Product Owner who will work collaboratively with our clients to provide a clear vision of the product that will be built. The Product Owner focuses on the end-user experience, needs and features that drive a road-map to deliver the client’s vision. They are also responsible for building and maintaining relationships that allow the Product Owner to act as the customer proxy and use influence to overcome hierarchal challenges.

The ideal candidate will have experience as a Scrum Master with the ability to help our teams deliver results against some of the most complex business and technology initiatives.

Responsibilities:

• Position can be located remote anywhere in the U.S. but candidate must have the willingness and ability to travel more than 60%; Working onsite with our clients
• Build business cases on-site with our clients to prioritize features through market research and competitive analysis
• Manage and align product roadmap with customers, and client stakeholders
• Collaborate with the designers, architects and engineers to iterate on the MVP scope.
• Manage product backlog with well-groomed user stories that are easy for the engineers to estimate
• Communicate the value of the product or new features to internal and external audiences
• Establishes product vision for complex and high impact products incorporating leading-edge technologies
• Recognizes and prioritizes the most important work for product teams (short-term and long-term work)
• Responsible for working with team(s) to surface and implement / address improvements / remove impediments that have implications across the department
• Balances trade-offs among product value, design and technology
• Acts as the voice of the customer, interfacing with enterprise leaders as an advocate for your product
• Identifies audience, user groups, needs and feature requirements.
• Aligns user needs and business value while streamlining and championing delivery channels for product delivery. Includes technical and go-to-market delivery.
• Develops feature requirements and acceptance criteria while acting as final release gatekeeper for new functionality
• Define and launch minimum viable products, adding key features/requirements incrementally
• Scrum Master – Preferred
• Lead team to accomplish highly complex, significant achievements while encouraging self-organization
• Lead/Participate in quarterly Program Increment planning sessions
• Facilitate road mapping, sprint planning sessions, retrospectives, and demos
• Ensure cross-team coordination
• Provides relevant metrics to gauge team progress with a continual focus on improvement
• Work with other Scrum Masters to define, reinforce and maintain a consistent practice across the organization
• Prepare and deliver verbally and orally effective communications regarding progress and status for both internal and client teams
• Perform hands-on work, including analysis, design, testing, change management, as needed by the team
• Strengthen the presence of our team as an Agile center of excellence

Requirements:

• Willingness and ability to travel more than 60%; Working onsite with our clients
• Strong educational background; preferably in a quantitative or technical field
• Bachelors or Graduate degree (MBA) preferred
• Prior experience as a consultant will be a big plus for this role
• Capable of thriving in a fast-paced, dynamic environment
• 4-8 years of product management experience, preferably in enterprise or consumer software
• 2+ years of experience as a Scrum Master
• Agile practitioner mindset and proficiency in Agile practices, service-oriented environments, and iterative development practices
• Minimum 3 years of experience in IT full development life cycle
• Excellent organization and analytical skills
• Strong attention to with excellent writing, presentation skills
• Experience working as a Product Manager in a modern software development based enterprise environment
• Experience working in a fast paced, fluid environment where priorities shift on a regular basis
• Flexibility to work with teams, individuals and executives and willingness to help with a wide variety of work products and people
• Experience working as part of a collaborative, cross-functional, modern software design and development team
• Experience spearheading initiatives that span across multiple business groups
• Experience creating, prioritizing and accepting user stories
• Experience conducting user research and testing to understand needs
• Experience identifying goals, metrics and analytics to measure product value
• Experience conducting competitive research and analysis

Preferred but not necessary skills to have:

• Operated as a Scrum Master within SAFe
• Test Driven Development

Benefits & Perks:

• Company sponsored health, dental, vision insurance and flexible spending account (FSA) for employees and their families including domestic partners
• Paid Vacation Time and company holidays
• 401K plan
• Lunch & Learns
• Passionate, collaborative and awesome co-workers
• World class training and career mentorship

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