Product Owner, Observability & Service Intelligence Platforms

Canada Life; Winnipeg; On-site; CAD 110,000 - 135,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Career development

Health benefits

Volunteer day

Pension plan

Employee discounts

Job summary

Canada Life is seeking an experienced Product Owner to lead the strategy, roadmap, and governance of enterprise Observability and Service Intelligence platforms in Winnipeg. You will bridge technology teams, business stakeholders, and executives to drive platform adoption, value realization, and continuous improvement.

You will own lifecycle management, vendor relationships, financial planning, and procurement decisions while collaborating with SRE, operations, and engineering teams to deliver

Qualifications

• 5+ years of Product Ownership, Product Management, or Platform Management experience within enterprise technology environments.
• Strong background in monitoring, observability, log analytics, service intelligence, IT operations, or application performance monitoring.
• Demonstrated experience managing enterprise software vendors and strategic technology partnerships.
• Experience leading contract negotiations, renewals, and commercial discussions.
• Exceptional stakeholder management and collaboration skills.
• Strong presentation, communication, and executive facing skills.
• Proven ability to influence without direct authority and lead cross functional initiatives.
• Experience working with Agile methodologies and product management practices.

Responsibilities

• Define and maintain the product vision, roadmap, and backlog for enterprise observability, monitoring, log analytics, and service intelligence capabilities.
• Partner with application, infrastructure, SRE, operations, and business teams to identify requirements and prioritize enhancements.
• Drive platform adoption and ensure solutions deliver measurable business and operational value.
• Establish KPIs and success metrics to evaluate platform effectiveness and user adoption.
• Lead platform lifecycle planning, including technology assessments and future-state strategy.
• Manage strategic relationships with platform vendors and partners.
• Lead contract negotiations, renewals, pricing discussions, and commercial reviews.
• Evaluate vendor performance against established service and business objectives.
• Conduct market assessments and product evaluations to support platform strategy and procurement decisions.
• Develop and manage platform budgets, forecasts, and cost optimization initiatives.
• Build business cases for investments, upgrades, and platform enhancements.
• Track licensing consumption, utilization, and overall platform value realization.
• Partner with procurement and finance teams to ensure effective financial governance.
• Build strong relationships across technology, operations, cybersecurity, architecture, and business teams.
• Facilitate discussions with senior leaders and influence strategic decision making.
• Present platform strategy, performance metrics, business cases, and recommendations to executive audiences.
• Drive consensus among diverse stakeholder groups with competing priorities.
• Champion best practices for enterprise monitoring, observability, alerting, event management, log analytics, and service intelligence while establishing standards, governance, and adoption frameworks.
• Partner directly with engineers, SREs, architects, and operations teams to design, implement, and optimize observability solutions, contributing hands-on to instrumentation, onboarding, dashboards, and alerting strategies.
• Act as a subject matter expert, providing technical leadership, guidance, and mentorship while supporting troubleshooting, root cause analysis, and platform optimization efforts.
• Balance strategic product ownership with active participation in technical planning, backlog management, and the ongoing evolution of enterprise observability capabilities to advance reliability and operational excellence.

Skills

Product ownership

Stakeholder management

Executive communication

Agile methodologies

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

Splunk

Dynatrace

Datadog

New Relic

Job description

Permanent Full Time

We are seeking an experienced Product Owner to lead the strategy, roadmap, governance, and ongoing optimization of our enterprise Observability and Service Intelligence platforms. This role is responsible for ensuring our monitoring, log analytics, event management, and service intelligence capabilities align with business objectives, operational requirements, and technology strategy.

The successful candidate will act as the bridge between technology teams, business stakeholders, vendors, and executive leadership while driving platform adoption, value realization, and continuous improvement. This individual will own platform lifecycle management, vendor relationships, financial planning, contract management, and the evolution of enterprise monitoring capabilities.

This is a highly collaborative, hands‑on leadership role that combines product ownership with technical execution. While responsible for strategy, roadmap, governance, and vendor management, the successful candidate will also work closely with the team to implement solutions, drive platform improvements, support onboarding efforts, and help solve complex observability challenges across the enterprise.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define and maintain the product vision, roadmap, and backlog for enterprise observability, monitoring, log analytics, and service intelligence capabilities
• Partner with application, infrastructure, SRE, operations, and business teams to identify requirements and prioritize enhancements
• Drive platform adoption and ensure solutions deliver measurable business and operational value
• Establish KPIs and success metrics to evaluate platform effectiveness and user adoption
• Lead platform lifecycle planning, including technology assessments and future-state strategy

Vendor & Contract Management:

• Manage strategic relationships with platform vendors and partners
• Lead contract negotiations, renewals, pricing discussions, and commercial reviews
• Evaluate vendor performance against established service and business objectives
• Conduct market assessments and product evaluations to support platform strategy and procurement decisions

Financial Management:

• Develop and manage platform budgets, forecasts, and cost optimization initiatives
• Build business cases for investments, upgrades, and platform enhancements
• Track licensing consumption, utilization, and overall platform value realization
• Partner with procurement and finance teams to ensure effective financial governance

Stakeholder Management & Collaboration:

• Build strong relationships across technology, operations, cybersecurity, architecture, and business teams
• Facilitate discussions with senior leaders and influence strategic decision making
• Present platform strategy, performance metrics, business cases, and recommendations to executive audiences
• Drive consensus among diverse stakeholder groups with competing priorities

Monitoring, Observability & Technical Leadership:

• Champion best practices for enterprise monitoring, observability, alerting, event management, log analytics, and service intelligence while establishing standards, governance, and adoption frameworks
• Partner directly with engineers, SREs, architects, and operations teams to design, implement, and optimize observability solutions, contributing hands‑on to instrumentation, onboarding, dashboards, and alerting strategies
• Act as a subject matter expert, providing technical leadership, guidance, and mentorship while supporting troubleshooting, root cause analysis, and platform optimization efforts
• Balance strategic product ownership with active participation in technical planning, backlog management, and the ongoing evolution of enterprise observability capabilities to advance reliability and operational excellence

Required Qualifications:

• 5+ years of Product Ownership, Product Management, or Platform Management experience within enterprise technology environments
• Strong background in monitoring, observability, log analytics, service intelligence, IT operations, or application performance monitoring
• Demonstrated experience managing enterprise software vendors and strategic technology partnerships
• Experience leading contract negotiations, renewals, and commercial discussions
• Exceptional stakeholder management and collaboration skills
• Strong presentation, communication, and executive facing skills
• Proven ability to influence without direct authority and lead cross functional initiatives
• Experience working with Agile methodologies and product management practices

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with enterprise observability and monitoring platforms such as Splunk, Dynatrace, Datadog, New Relic, or similar technologies
• Knowledge of SRE practices, operational excellence frameworks, and service management processes
• Experience supporting large scale enterprise environments
• Familiarity with cloud monitoring and hybrid infrastructure observability

Core Competencies

• Strategic Thinking
• Product Ownership
• Vendor Management
• Contract Negotiation
• Financial Management
• Monitoring & Observability Expertise
• Executive Communications
• Presentation Skills
• Stakeholder Management
• Collaboration & Influence
• Change Leadership
• Analytical Problem Solving

The base salary for this position is between $110,000 - $135,000 annually. This represents base salary only and does not represent other variable compensation components of our total compensation ( i.e. annual bonus, commission etc).

Career opportunities will be open a minimum of 5 business days from the date of posting, closing dates will vary depending on the search activity. All applications received will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

Grow with Canada Life

We’re united by a shared purpose: to improve the financial, physical and mental well‑being of Canadians. Our company is trusted by 1 in 3 Canadians and contributes to the strength of communities across the country.

We’re looking for people who live our values everyday: we step up, we do the right thing, and we deliver – for our customers, communities and each other. Are you someone who always strives to do the right thing, who steps up for themselves and others, and who delivers with impact? Then we want to hear from you!

What we offer

• Career Development: Opportunities for career advancement, access to industry-leading learning programs and up to$2,000 annually towards education reimbursement.
• Health & Wellness:Flexible health and dental benefits, plus a $5,000 mental health benefit to support your well‑being.
• Time Off:In addition to regular vacation and personal days, we support community involvement with a volunteer day.
• Financial Security:Company-matching pension plan,share ownership program and additionalinvestment options.
• Rewards and Recognition: Employee recognition programs, service milestone celebrations, employee discounts and more!
• Emphasis on Community: We provide a workplace where employees feel connected and supported through Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), mentorship programs, social clubs and events.

We’re committed to removing barriers and ensuring equal access to employment. Applicants requiring reasonable accommodation during the application process may contact [e-mail]. All information provided will be handled in accordance with applicable laws and Canada Life policies.

Canada Life would like to thank all applicants, however only those who qualify for an interview will be contacted