Product Owner II – Portfolio Operations

Sierra Nevada Corporation; Englewood (CO); Hybrid; USD 143,000 - 197,000; Full time

Job summary

Sierra Nevada Corporation is seeking a Product Owner within Portfolio Operations to coach new Product Owners as they adopt a modern product operating model. You'll own and prioritize backlogs, guide iteration priorities, and partner with Product Managers, Capability Owners, and delivery teams to accelerate team maturity and deliver measurable value across programs.

Travel up to 20% may be required as part of coordinating with diverse teams across the organization.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field.
• 10+ years of IT experience, with at least 2+ years in a leadership role.
• Demonstrated experience managing complex IT projects.
• Strong background in IT infrastructure and operations.
• Extensive knowledge of service-oriented architecture, web, mobile, and cloud solutions.

Responsibilities

• Own and prioritize the team backlog, ensuring clarity and alignment to defined outcomes
• Write high-quality user stories and acceptance criteria; coach new Product Owners in these practices
• Lead backlog refinement, demonstrating effective techniques for story slicing and readiness
• Manage high-level stakeholder relationships, ensuring clear communication and alignment with business objectives.
• Partner with new Product Owners to teach prioritization, tradeoff decision-making, and flow discipline
• Provide clarity to engineers and stakeholders throughout development
• Support predictable delivery by guiding teams in iteration planning and acceptance
• Coach new Product Owners in connecting backlog decisions to roadmap themes and enterprise capability needs
• Collaborate closely and facilitate alignment with Product Managers on feature readiness and cross-team dependencies
• Track team-level value delivery and model outcome-based thinking
• Maintain healthy team operating rhythms and promote adoption of modern product practices
• Demonstrate strong servant leadership and reinforce a culture of teamwork, transparency, and collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s degree in a related field

Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration, or a related field

Tools

SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager

PMI-ACP

PfMP

Job description

Are you excited about helping teams adopt modern product practices and guiding new Product Owners as they step into their roles? As a Product Owner within Portfolio Operations, you will work alongside emerging product leaders to show them how to confidently own their backlog, shape iteration priorities, and deliver meaningful value. In this role, you won't just manage a team's backlog – you'll actively coach new Product Owners through our transition to the product operating model, helping them understand decision rights, strengthen readiness, and embed predictable flow. Partnering closely with Product Managers, Capability Owners, Agile professionals, and delivery teams, you'll play a hands‑on role in accelerating team maturity by demonstrating the craft of product ownership, modeling effective practices, and ensuring each team has the support it needs to succeed in a modern product centric environment. As SNC's corporate team, we provide the company and its business areas with strategic direction and business support spanning executive management, finance and accounting, operations, human resources, legal, IT, information security, facilities, marketing, and communications.

Responsibilities

• Own and prioritize the team backlog, ensuring clarity and alignment to defined outcomes
• Write high-quality user stories and acceptance criteria; coach new Product Owners in these practices
• Lead backlog refinement, demonstrating effective techniques for story slicing and readiness
• Manage high-level stakeholder relationships, ensuring clear communication and alignment with business objectives.
• Partner with new Product Owners to teach prioritization, tradeoff decision-making, and flow discipline
• Provide clarity to engineers and stakeholders throughout development
• Support predictable delivery by guiding teams in iteration planning and acceptance
• Coach new Product Owners in connecting backlog decisions to roadmap themes and enterprise capability needs
• Collaborate closely and facilitate alignment with Product Managers on feature readiness and cross-team dependencies
• Track team-level value delivery and model outcome-based thinking
• Maintain healthy team operating rhythms and promote adoption of modern product practices
• Demonstrate strong servant leadership and reinforce a culture of teamwork, transparency, and collaboration

Qualifications You Must Have

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field.
• 10+ years of IT experience, with at least 2+ years in a leadership role.
• Relevant experience can be considered as a substitute for the required educational qualifications.
• In the absence of a degree, a minimum of 14 years of related experience is required.
• Higher level relevant degree may substitute for experience.
• Demonstrated experience managing complex IT projects.
• Strong background in IT infrastructure and operations.
• Demonstrated experience managing complex projects and teams.
• Extensive knowledge of service-oriented architecture, web, mobile, and cloud solutions.

Qualifications We Prefer

• Excellent communication and leadership skills.
• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration, or a related field.
• Advanced certifications such as SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager, Certified Scrum Product Owner, Program Management Institute (PMI) Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP), Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP), or similar.
• Experience with product management or product operating model.
• Experience with cloud technologies and platforms.
• Experience in the Aerospace and Defense industry.
• Knowledge of enterprise software and application development.

Essential Functions

• Ability to work in an office or hybrid environment.
• Must be able to work on a computer for most of the work shift.
• Strong hand/finger dexterity for computer tasks.
• Ability to lift up to 15 lbs. occasionally.
• Travel may be required up to 20%.
• This posting will be open for application for a minimum of 5 days and may be extended based on business needs.

Estimated Starting Salary Range: $143,487.14 - $197,294.82. Compensation varies depending on a wide array of factors, such as candidates' key skills, relevant work experience, and education/training/certifications. The disclosed range estimate may be adjusted for any applicable geographic differential associated with the location at which the position may be filled. SNC offers annual incentive pay based upon performance that is commensurate with the level of the position. SNC offers a generous benefit package, including medical, dental, and vision plans, 401(k) with 150% match up to 6%, life insurance, 3 weeks paid time off, tuition reimbursement, and more.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: To conform to U.S. Government international trade regulations, applicant must be a U.S. Citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State or U.S. Department of Commerce. Learn more about the background check process for Security Clearances.

SNC is a global leader in aerospace and national security committed to moving the American Dream forward. We're known and respected for our mission and execution focus, agility, and disruptive and rapid innovation. We provide leading edge technologies and transformative solutions that support our nation’s most critical security needs. If you are mission-focused, thrive in collaborative environments, and want to make our country stronger with state-of-the-art technologies that safeguard freedom, join our team! SNC is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to an environment free of discrimination. Employment decisions are made based on merit without regard to race, color, age, religion, sex, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran or other characteristics protected by law. SNC is a trusted global leader in aerospace and national security. Our innovative solutions enable connected protection through command, control and communications systems, as well as ISR, cyber, electromagnetic spectrum management, and other high capabilities for systems across all domains - sea, land, air, space and cyber. As a longstanding leader in defense technology, SNC is the optimum intersection of commercial, defense and non-traditional contractors. We are one of the only privately owned mid-tier A&D contractors and we pride ourselves on our ability to invest early and often to ensure mission success on or ahead of schedule. It's part of our mission to always stay one step ahead; working on solutions today to solve the problems of tomorrow. Founded in 1963, SNC is owned by Chairwoman Eren Ozmen and CEO Fatih Ozmen.