Product Owner

Welcome to the intersection of energy and home services. At Direct Energy, an NRG company, we’re all about propelling the next generation of leaders forward. We are driven by our passion to create a smarter, cleaner and more connected future. We deliver innovative solutions that make our customers’ lives easier—helping them power, protect, and intelligently manage their homes and businesses. To do this, we need creative and talented people to join our company.

We offer a dynamic work environment and a unified and inclusive culture. Our company programs are designed to help employees develop the skills they need for success now and in the future. In everything we do, we aim to champion our employees and bring value to our customers, investors and society.

More information is available at directenergy. Connect with NRG and Direct Energy on Facebook, LinkedIn, and follow us on Twitter.

Job Summary:

This position reports to the Digital Management & Product Growth organization and supports Direct Energy’s digital products efforts aimed at extending our position as a leading provider of innovative propositions and customer experience in the Alberta residential and small commercial retail energy market. The incumbent will support the product strategy in alignment with company goals and objectives. They will have responsibility for delivering best in class customer experience and feature enhancements to digital products. This role plays a key part in the agile team and works with Product and Digital counterparts, Customer Management, GTM, Care & Retention to align technology, features, benefits, value proposition, customer experience across all digital products. Additionally, this role will work in an agile environment with Scrum Master and technology development lead to ensure the implementation of the feature set achieves the desired business outcomes. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in product management in technology, excellent communication skills, and a deep understanding of digital retention strategies. Stay updated with industry trends, best practices, and emerging technologies in digital product management and Agile development.

Essential Duties/Responsibilities:

1. Support the Delivery of the Digital Product Vision and Strategy:
   - Support the product roadmap and feature set for the digital product working with Product Designer and Product manager to develop and prioritize features and user stories for digital products.
   - Collaborate with stakeholders to refine user stories and requirements, and translate them into detailed product specifications for the technology teams.
   - Review digital analytics to identify opportunities and adjusting the product feature, or refinement of user journeys to remove friction and pain points set accordingly.


2. Feature Prioritization and Backlog Management:
   - Prioritize features and enhancements based on business goals and customer needs.
   - Create and manage the product backlog, ensuring it is prioritized, refined, and well-groomed regularly.
   - Work closely with the development team to ensure a clear understanding of the product backlog items.
   - Provide timely and clear acceptance criteria for each user story.
   - Maintain clear and open communication with all stakeholders, ensuring transparency and alignment throughout the development process.
   - Maintain detailed product documentation, including user stories, wireframes or high-fidelity mock-ups and prototypes where necessary, acceptance criteria, and any other relevant documentation required by the Agile development process.


3. Agile Development Process:
   - Serve as the primary point of contact and advocate for the digital product within the Agile development team.
   - Define features and product enhancements, working closely with product design and IT teams to ensure alignment with the product vision and customer needs.
   - Collaborate with the Agile development team during sprint planning, backlog grooming, and acceptance testing.
   - Ensure that the Agile development team has the necessary information to deliver each sprint's goals.
   - Act as the voice of the customer within the Agile development team.


4. Testing and Quality Assurance:
   - Conduct testing and quality assurance to ensure the new features meet the defined acceptance criteria.
   - Coordinate with the QA team to perform functional, integration, and regression testing.


5. Release Coordination:
   - Coordinate the release with the development team, ensuring that all features are deployed correctly.
   - Communicate the release plan to all stakeholders, including customers and internal teams.


6. Monitoring and Feedback Gathering:
   - Monitor the performance of the new features and gather feedback from customers and internal stakeholders.
   - Analyze the data to identify areas for improvement and plan for future releases.


7. Stakeholder Management:
   - Collaborate with stakeholders, including Customer Management, GTM, Marketing, Sales Channels, and IT, to align technology, features, benefits, value proposition, customer experience, and marketing plans with the targeted segments.
   - Communicate regularly with stakeholders to provide updates on the progress of the digital product.
   - Work closely with Operations and IT to ensure the implementation of the feature set achieves the desired business outcomes.
   - Develop training materials and documentation to support the release of new software features.
   - Conduct training sessions for end-users and other stakeholders as needed.

Minimum Requirements:

1. - Bachelor’s degree in business administration, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field
2. - Proven experience as a Product Owner or Product Manager, with a track record of successfully delivering digital products in a fast-paced environment.
3. - Excellent communication and people skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with cross-functional teams and influence stakeholders at all levels.
4. - Solid understanding of agile methodologies and product management best practices.
5. - Experience with Azure DevOps as the primary tool for managing Product Backlog Items (PBIs).
6. - Proficient in conducting user research, gathering requirements, and translating them into detailed product specifications.

Additional Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

1. - Ability to adapt to rapidly changing priorities.
2. - Proven ability to work in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
3. - Teamwork and cross-functional leadership skills. Collaborative approach to issues and problems.
4. - Problem definition and solving skills.
5. - Excellent communication skills: i.e., effectively communicates with internal groups on ideas and resolves issues.
6. - Ability to manage multiple complex projects simultaneously.

Working Conditions:

1. - Primarily an office environment.
2. - Some overtime required as special projects arise.
3. - Some travel - 10%

Physical Requirements:

1. - Occasionally requires lifting as appropriate to perform duties and responsibilities/Position requires employee to work using a laptop/computer screen.

NRG Energy is committed to a drug and alcohol-free workplace. To the extent permitted by law and any applicable collective bargaining agreement, employees are subject to periodic random drug testing, and post-accident and reasonable suspicion drug and alcohol testing. EOE AA M/F/Protected Veteran Status/Disability. Level, Title and/or Salary may be adjusted based on the applicant's experience or skills.
EEO is the Law Poster (The poster can be found at eeoc.gov/employers/upload/poster_screen_reader_optimized.pdf)
Official description on file with Talent.