Lead AI Product Owner

Lincoln Financial Group; Radnor (Delaware County); Hybrid; USD 107,000 - 171,000; Full time

Job summary

Lincoln Financial Group is seeking an experienced AI Product Owner to own AI feature backlogs, write detailed user stories, and coordinate end-to-end delivery with engineering and data science teams.

You will lead agile ceremonies, drive UAT/QA readiness, and ensure responsible AI practices while partnering with business SMEs and UX designers across feature areas.

Qualifications

• 3–10 years of experience in product management, product ownership, or a closely related role.
• Hands-on experience working on AI, ML, or data-driven products — including collaboration with data science or engineering teams.
• Familiarity with LLM concepts such as prompt engineering, model evaluation, and output quality assessment.
• Experience with agile methodologies and backlog management tools (e.g., Jira, Linear, Productboard).
• Strong written communication skills — able to write clear, unambiguous user stories, PRDs, and feature specifications.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Business, or a related field.

Responsibilities

• AI Feature Ownership & Delivery: own and maintain the backlog for assigned AI features, write detailed user stories and acceptance criteria.
• Coordinate UAT, QA, and launch readiness activities for AI feature releases.
• Support the AVP in managing timelines, dependencies, and risks across feature workstreams.
• Stakeholder Engagement: be the day-to-day product contact for SMEs, engineering teams, and UX designers.
• Communicate status, trade-offs, and risks to AVP and partners.
• Support change management and backlog refinement sessions.
• Responsible AI & Compliance: apply responsible AI principles and escalate concerns to risk partners.
• Ensure documentation, testing evidence, and release artifacts meet governance standards.
• Collaborate with Trust & Safety, Legal, and Compliance teams as needed.
• Performance & Insights: define feature-level success metrics and analyze data to inform backlog prioritization.
• Data Science & Model Evaluation Support: collaborate with data scientists to understand capabilities and evaluation results.

Skills

AI product management

Agile methodologies

Backlog management

Jira / product tools

Stakeholder communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Business

Tools

Jira

Linear

Productboard

Azure OpenAI

AWS Bedrock

Anthropic Claude

Google Vertex AI

LangSmith

Weights & Biases

Job description

Be Aware of Fraudulent Recruiting Activities: Lincoln values the privacy and security of every applicant and urges all applicants to diligently protect their sensitive personal information from scams targeting job seekers. These scams can take many forms including fake employment applications, bogus interviews and falsified offer letters.

Lincoln will not ask applicants to provide their social security numbers, date of birth, bank account information or other sensitive information in job applications. Additionally, our recruiters do not communicate with applicants through free e-mail accounts (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail) or conduct interviews utilizing video chat rooms. We will never ask applicants to provide payment during the hiring process or extend an offer without conducting a phone, live video or in-person interview. Please contact Lincoln's fraud team at [e-mail] if you encounter a recruiter or see a job opportunity that seems suspicious.

Select how often (in days) to receive an alert:

Alternate Locations: Radnor, PA (Pennsylvania); Greensboro, NC (North Carolina)

Work Arrangement:

Hybrid : Employee will work 3 days a week in a Lincoln office

Relocation assistance:is not available for this opportunity.

The Role at a Glance

What you'll be doing

AI Feature Ownership & Delivery

• Own and maintain the product backlog for assigned AI features or squads, ensuring stories are well-defined, prioritized, and ready for sprint execution.
• Write detailed user stories, acceptance criteria, and feature specifications for AI-driven capabilities in collaboration with engineering and data science teams.
• Lead actively in agile ceremonies - sprint planning, standups, reviews, and retrospectives - keeping delivery on track and surfacing blockers early.
• Coordinate UAT, QA, and launch readiness activities for AI feature releases, ensuring quality and compliance standards are met before go-live.
• Support the AVP in managing timelines, dependencies, and risks across feature workstreams.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Serve as the day-to-day product contact for business SMEs, engineering squads, and UX designers within assigned AI feature areas.
• Communicate feature status, trade-offs, and delivery risks clearly to the AVP and relevant business partners.
• Facilitate working sessions and backlog refinement meetings to drive team alignment and shared understanding of requirements.
• Support change management by helping business partners understand, test, and adopt new AI-driven capabilities.

Responsible AI & Compliance

• Apply responsible AI principles - fairness, transparency, explainability, and privacy - in the definition and acceptance of AI features.
• Escalate potential compliance, bias, or safety concerns identified during model evaluation or feature review to the AVP and relevant risk partners.
• Ensure AI feature documentation, testing evidence, and release artifacts meet Lincoln's internal governance and audit standards.
• Collaborate with Trust & Safety, Legal, and Compliance teams as needed to support feature-level risk reviews.

Performance & Insights

• Define and track feature-level success metrics including adoption, task completion, model accuracy, and user satisfaction.
• Analyze usage data, model performance logs, and user feedback to identify improvement opportunities and inform backlog prioritization.
• Contribute to sprint-level reporting and help maintain product dashboards that surface key delivery and quality metrics.
• Share learnings from evals, user testing, and post-launch monitoring with the broader AI Product & Delivery team.

Data Science & Model Evaluation Support

• Partner with data scientists and ML engineers to understand model capabilities, limitations, and evaluation results for assigned AI features.
• Assist in designing and executing evaluations (evals) for LLM-powered features - assessing output quality, accuracy, relevance, and safety against defined benchmarks.
• Review and annotate model outputs as part of human-in-the-loop feedback processes, identifying failure modes, edge cases, and opportunities for improvement.
• Support the creation of eval datasets, test case libraries, and regression frameworks to enable consistent model performance tracking.
• Assist in prompt testing and iteration - running structured experiments to understand how prompt changes affect model behavior and output quality.
• Help monitor model performance post-launch and flag regressions or unexpected behavior to the data science team.

What we’re looking for

Must-haves:

• 3–10 years of experience in product management, product ownership, or a closely related role.
• Hands-on experience working on AI, ML, or data-driven products — including direct collaboration with data science or engineering teams.
• Familiarity with LLM concepts such as prompt engineering, model evaluation, and output quality assessment.
• Experience with agile methodologies and backlog management tools (e.g., Jira, Linear, Productboard).
• Strong written communication skills — able to write clear, unambiguous user stories, PRDs, and feature specifications.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Business, or a related field.

Nice-to-haves:

• Hands-on experience with LLM APIs or enterprise AI platforms (e.g., Azure OpenAI, AWS Bedrock, Anthropic Claude, Google Vertex AI).
• Exposure to ML evaluation frameworks, annotation workflows, or AI observability tools (e.g., LangSmith, Weights & Biases).
• Familiarity with responsible AI practices including bias detection, fairness evaluation, and model explainability.
• Domain experience in life insurance, annuities, retirement planning, or employee benefits.
• Product or AI-related certifications (Pragmatic, AIPMM, data science, or ML-related).

Application Deadline

Applications for this position will be accepted through September 30, 2026, subject to earlier closure due to applicant volume.

What’s it like to work here?

At Lincoln Financial, we love what we do. We make meaningful contributions each and every day to empower our customers to take charge of their lives. Working alongside dedicated and talented colleagues, we build fulfilling careers and stronger communities through a company that values our unique perspectives, insights and contributions and invests in programs that empower each of us to take charge of our own future.

What’s in it for you:

• Clearly defined career tracks and job levels, along with associated behaviors for each of Lincoln's core values andleadership attributes
• Leadership development and virtual training opportunities
• Free financial counseling, health coaching and employee assistance program
• Tuition assistance program
• Work arrangements that work for you
• Effective productivity/technology tools and training

The pay range for this position is$106,875 - $171,000with anticipated pay for new hires between the minimum and midpoint of the range and could vary above and below the listed range as permitted by applicable law. Pay is based on non-discriminatory factors including but not limited to work experience, education, location, licensure requirements, proficiency and qualifications required for the role. The base pay is just one component of Lincoln’s total rewards package for employees. In addition, the role may be eligible for the Annual Incentive Program, which is discretionary and based on the performance of the company, business unit and individual. Other rewards may include long‑term incentives, sales incentives and Lincoln’s standard benefits package.

About The Company

Lincoln Financial (NYSE: LNC) helps people to confidently plan for their version of a successful future. We focus on identifying a clear path to financial security, with products including annuities, life insurance, group protection, and retirement plan services.

With our 120-year track record of expertise and integrity, millions of customers trust our solutions and service to help put their goals in reach.

Lincoln Financial Distributors, a broker-dealer, is the wholesale distribution organization of Lincoln Financial. Lincoln Financial is the marketing name for Lincoln Financial Corporation and its affiliates including The Lincoln National Life Insurance Company, Fort Wayne, IN, and Lincoln Life & Annuity Company of New York, Syracuse, NY. Lincoln Financial affiliates, their distributors, and their respective employees, representatives and/or insurance agents do not provide tax, accounting or legal advice.

Lincoln is committed to creating an inclusive environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.

Additional Information

This position may be subject to Lincoln’s Political Contribution Policy. An offer of employment may be contingent upon disclosing to Lincoln the details of certain political contributions. Lincoln may decline to extend an offer or terminate employment for this role if it determines political contributions made could have an adverse impact on Lincoln’s current or future business interests, misrepresentations were made, or for failure to fully disclose applicable political contributions and or fundraising activities.

Any unsolicited resumes or candidate profiles submitted through our web site or to personal e-mail accounts of employees of Lincoln Financial are considered property of Lincoln Financial and are not subject to payment of agency fees.

Lincoln Financial (\"Lincoln\" or \"the Company\") is an Equal Opportunity employer and, as such, is committed in policy and practice to recruit, hire, compensate, train and promote, in all job classifications, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin or disability. Opportunities throughout Lincoln are available to employees and applicants are evaluated on the basis of job qualifications. If you are a person with a disability that impedes your ability to express your interest for a position through our online application process, or require TTY/TDD assistance, contact us by calling [phone].

This Employer Participates in E-Verify. See the E-Verify notices.