Senior Product Owner - Empower Portals & Mortgage Tech

City National Bank; Frankfort (KY); On-site; USD 101,000 - 172,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare coverage

401(k) matching

Tuition reimbursement

Vacation & leave

Fertility benefits

Career mobility support

Job summary

City National Bank seeks a Senior Product Owner to bridge vision and delivery for our loan origination platform. You will own the product roadmap, translate complex business needs into actionable requirements, and ensure features deliver customer value while meeting organizational goals.

You’ll capture stakeholder feedback, document BRDs, define clear acceptance criteria, and drive UAT sign-off to ensure traceability from idea to release.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent.
• 5 years of hands-on experience with Empower Mortgage/HELOC loan origination systems and its vendor ecosystem.
• Proven ability to prioritize and manage backlogs for loan origination systems.
• Deep understanding of mortgage/HELOC workflows, compliance requirements, and integration points with downstream systems.

Responsibilities

• Translate strategy into actionable product features and epics.
• Define, maintain, and communicate a clear product vision to configuration teams and development vendors.
• Maintain and prioritize a detailed backlog of user stories, features, technical tasks, and enhancements to maximize ROI and speed to market.
• Ensure stories have clear acceptance criteria and can be effectively implemented by configuration teams and vendors.
• Lead backlog refinement, coordinate with sprint planning leader, and other agile ceremonies to ensure development flows efficiently.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for clarifying requirements and prioritization within development and configuration teams.
• Protect the team from scope creep while negotiating what gets delivered per sprint.
• Promote adherence to Agile principles across teams and mentor junior product owners on best practices.
• Act as the face of the product to stakeholders, translating business needs into executable backlog items.
• Gather and synthesize feedback from multiple business lines to document clear, actionable BRDs.
• Ensure traceability between BRDs and downstream deliverables, including UAT test scripts and acceptance criteria.
• Document test scripts that are executable by business lines.
• Manage dependencies across multiple teams and products to ensure smooth delivery.
• Facilitate communication across tech and business teams.
• Validate priorities and backlog items with input from technical leads and business stakeholders.
• Conduct competitive analysis, market research, and user feedback studies to inform backlog priorities and product enhancements.
• Advocate for the end‑user by incorporating usability and customer experience insights into the backlog and sprints.
• Interpret analytics and KPIs to guide iterative backlog decisions, including adoption, engagement, and retention metrics.
• Track development progress and ensure backlog commitments are delivered on time and according to specifications.
• Identify, assess, and mitigate risks related to delivery timelines, scope, and quality.
• Create and coordinate line‑of‑business User Acceptance Testing (UAT) test scripts, ensuring full traceability to BRDs and alignment with business objectives.
• Partner with QA and business stakeholders to oversee UAT execution and sign‑off prior to release.

Skills

Backlog management

Agile ceremonies

Stakeholder communication

BRD drafting

UAT execution

Analytics & KPIs

Mentoring juniors

Requirements translation

Vendor collaboration

Prioritization

Education

Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent

Tools

Empower Mortgage/HELOC

Dark Matter exchange interfaces

Docutech document generation

Job description

City National Bank seeks a Senior Product Owner to bridge vision and delivery for our loan origination platform. You will own the product roadmap, translate complex business needs into actionable requirements, and ensure features deliver customer value while meeting organizational goals.

You’ll capture stakeholder feedback, document BRDs, define clear acceptance criteria, and drive UAT sign-off to ensure traceability from idea to release.