Product Owner, Product Development

Ascensus; Kansas City (MO); On-site; USD 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Ascensus is seeking a Product Owner to lead the roadmap and execution for Retirement and Government Savings programs. You will define stories, prioritize the team backlog, and drive agile delivery while ensuring alignment with the overarching vision and customer needs.

You will collaborate with BAs and technology teams to elaborate epics into actionable stories, participate in ceremonies, and communicate progress to stakeholders. A strong agile background and client-facing skills are essential.

Qualifications

• Undergrad degree in business or tech fields.
• Strong MS Office skills; solid Agile and SDLC knowledge.
• 5+ years in the specified business domain (401(k), IRA, 529).
• 5+ years as Product Owner or in a tech practice.
• Proven Agile implementation with strong technical skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; ability to influence at all levels.

Responsibilities

• Creates and maintains the Scrum Team Roadmap.
• Prioritizes backlog by business value/ROI.
• Conveys vision and goals for each Release and Sprint.
• Represents the customer and engages stakeholders.
• Collaborates with the Scrum team on feature development and backlog management.
• Translates Epics/Themes into granular user stories; supports BD/BDD where needed.
• Participates in daily scrums, sprint planning, releases, reviews and retrospectives.
• Inspects progress and accepts/rejects work; adjusts course as needed.
• Maintains relationships with business and client to understand needs.
• Involved in organizational readiness activities; identifies KPIs and sets annual goals.

Skills

Agile methodologies

SDLC knowledge

Scrum framework

Stakeholder communication

Analytical thinking

Education

Undergraduate degree in business or technology

Tools

JIRA

Confluence

Azure DevOps

Aha!

Job description

Ascensus is the leading independent technology and service platform powering savings plans across America, providing products and expertise that help nearly 16 million people save for a better today and tomorrow.

Section 1: Position Summary

As a Product Owner at Ascensus, you will be responsible for the roadmap and execution to carry out the vision for the assigned Program (Retirement and Government Savings). The Product Owner is a member of an Agile team responsible for defining Stories and prioritizing the Team Backlog so as to streamline the execution of program priorities, while maintaining conceptual and technical integrity of the Features or components the team is responsible for. In addition, the ability to build relationships, influence and be a driver of execution in a fast-paced environment is critical to this role.

Section 2: Job Functions, Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Creates and maintains the Scrum Team Roadmap.
• Prioritizes and sequences the Backlog according to business value or ROI.
• Conveys the Vision and Goals at the beginning of every Release and Sprint.
• Represents the customer, interfaces and engages the customer.
• Collaborating with a Scrum team on new Feature development, requests including building and maintaining a Product backlog, contributing to/reviewing/approving user stories, sprint support, and UAT testing.
• Where appropriate, works closely with BAs and Technology to create Behaviors Driven Development (BDD) stories. Assists with the elaboration of Epics, Themes and Features into user stories that are granular enough to be achieved in a single sprint.
• Participates in the daily Scrums, Sprint Planning Meetings, ReleasePlanning, Sprint Reviews and Retrospectives.
• Inspects the product progress at the end of every Sprint and has complete authority to accept or reject work done. If necessary assess and change the course of the project at the end of every Sprint as needed.
• Maintains relationships with the business and the client to understand the current and changing needs.
• Actively involved in Organizational readiness activities.
• Primary point person internally and externally for the team for updates and feedback.
• Identify and maintain the KPIs need to support the team and assigned product.
• Establish annual goals, objectives and outcomes for product(s); Track and monitor key performance indicators.

Supervision

• No direct reports, but provides critical leadership to drive the scrum team(s)

Section 3: Experience, Skills, Knowledge Requirements

• Undergraduate degree in business or technology related fields.
• Advanced with Microsoft Office applications and a strong working knowledge of Agile and SDLC methodologies.
• Minimum 5 years’ experience in the assigned business domain: 401(k), IRA, 529, etc.
• Minimum 5 years’ experience as a Product Owner, or a Technology (Dev or QA) practice.
• Demonstrated experience implementing and executing Agile principles with strong technical skills.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment; high quality of work that adheres to all standards, regulatory and audit requirements.
• Strong consultative and well-articulated communication and writing skills with the ability to interact and influence at all levels of the organization.
• Demonstrated experience with facilitation, situational awareness, conflict resolution, change management, continual improvement, empowerment, and increasing transparency.
• Demonstrated experience implementing and executing Agile principles with strong technical skills.
• Naturally curious, detail oriented, with strong analytic, and research skills.
• Knowledge and/or experience with Confluence, JIRA, Azure DevOps, and Aha!. Experience in administering the aforementioned applications a plus.

We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer