Principal Product Owner

SMART IT People; Charlotte (NC); On-site; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading IT consulting firm has an exciting opportunity for a Principal/Senior Product Owner in Charlotte, NC. You will oversee a product portfolio, focusing on strategic thinking and hands-on execution. The ideal candidate will have over 10 years of experience in product management and strong analytical skills, utilizing SQL/BI tools. This role offers full-time engagement with a commitment to customer value and product excellence.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive product management / product ownership experience.
• Proven ability to implement automation and secure system rollouts.
• Experience driving change management in matrixed organizations.

Responsibilities

• Own an end-to-end product portfolio and set a clear vision.
• Act as trusted adviser to Division Presidents and sales leaders.
• Craft communication plans, training, and adoption metrics.

Skills

Product management experience

Cross-functional leadership

Hands-on experience with SaaS/eCommerce

Analytical skills with SQL/BI tools

Communication and storytelling skills

Change management experience

Education

Certifications like CSPO, SAFe PO/PM

Tools

SQL

Cloud computing

Observability platforms

Job description

SMART IT People has an exciting full-time opportunity for a Principal/Senior Product Owner for our client in Charlotte, NC. This position will be the connective tissue between the business divisions, enterprise strategy, and technology modernization agenda. You will own an end-to-end product portfolio, set a clear vision in partnership with senior leaders, and employ a data-driven prioritization framework to deliver customer value. This role requires equal parts strategic thinking, servant leadership, and hands-on execution.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive product management / product ownership experience with recent success scaling product culture and frameworks.
• Demonstrated ability to own enterprise-wide roadmaps and lead cross-functional teams
• Hands-on experience with SaaS/eCommerce platforms, customer escalations, and performance engineering.
• Deep familiarity with modern product discovery, backlog management, Agile/Scrum, and Lean experimentation practices.
• Proven track record partnering with technology on cloud migration, API-first architectures, and technical‑debt reduction.
• Proven track record implementing automation and secure system rollouts.
• Strong analytical skills—comfortable with SQL/BI tools, cohort analysis, funnel metrics, and financial modeling to build data‑backed business cases.
• Exceptional communication and storytelling skills; able to influence C‑suite and front‑line stakeholders alike.
• Experience driving change management in matrixed organizations, including rollout planning, training, and adoption measurement.
• Background integrating AI/ML or advanced analytics into product features preferred.
• Certifications such as CSPO, SAFe PO/PM
• Co-create a multi-year product vision aligned to enterprise growth objectives.
• Translate strategic themes into outcome‑oriented product roadmaps.
• Leverage SaaS platform and cloud product expertise to define secure, scalable, customer-focused solutions
• Implement a measurable framework (OKRs / RICE / WSJF) to rank features, tech‑debt retirement, and modernization initiatives.
• Make explicit trade‑off decisions; articulate what not to build to preserve focus.
• Apply incident analysis and performance data to guide prioritization.
• Apply hands-on experience triaging and prioritizing escalations, defects, and performance improvements into structured backlogs that balance short-term fixes with long-term modernization

Stakeholder Partnership

• Act as trusted adviser to Division Presidents, Ops, Sales, and Marketing leaders; synthesize diverse needs into a cohesive backlog.
• Facilitate quarterly planning and roadmap reviews.
• Bridge business requirements with technical feasibility, ensuring alignment across teams.
• Act as a primary advocate for enterprise customers during escalations and critical incidents, ensuring their needs are translated into product improvements.
• Partner with Engineering, Data, and Architecture leads to migrate legacy platforms, introduce cloud‑native capabilities, and strengthen DevSecOps practices.
• Apply technical expertise in Java, SQL, APIs, cloud computing, and observability platforms (AppDynamics, Splunk, ScienceLogic, Grafana) to guide product decisions.
• Own defect triage with detailed documentation, enabling expedited fixes and reducing customer disruption
• Lead initiatives to implement monitoring frameworks, automation, and system optimization for high-impact operations.
• Define north‑star and leading KPIs; build business cases grounded in CAC, LTV, conversion, and productivity metrics.
• Design A/B and multivariate experiments to validate hypotheses and de‑risk investments.
• Use SQL and BI tools to measure performance outcomes and adoption across product portfolios.
• Use incident analysis, operational telemetry, and performance monitoring data to validate assumptions and continuously optimize product decisions

Change Management

• Craft communication plans, training, and adoption metrics to ensure successful roll‑outs.
• Serve as product evangelist, nurturing a customer‑centric product culture enterprise‑wide.
• Create playbooks, knowledge templates, and technical documentation to standardize processes and enable cross-team adoption.
• Mentor other Product Owners and cross‑functional squad members on product mindset, discovery techniques, and outcome thinking.
• Contribute to organizational playbooks, templates, and reusable processes to standardize delivery.