Senior Product Owner I

Sage Pub; Thousand Oaks (CA); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401(k) matching

Hybrid/Remote work

Education support

Anniversary trip every 5 years

Job summary

Sage Publishing is seeking a Product Owner to own the Dynamics CRM backlog and partner with Sales and business teams. You will translate needs into clearly defined work for delivery teams, lead discovery, and manage dependencies across Sage Technology.

You will collaborate with engineers, product managers, and architects to balance priorities, measure outcomes, and improve adoption. Hybrid or remote work options apply.

Qualifications

• 3–5 years in product ownership/management with backlog responsibility.
• Proven ability to write clear user stories and acceptance criteria.
• Strong stakeholder management and ability to say no with reasons.
• Ability to analyze data to inform prioritization.
• Experience in agile delivery, ideally across multiple locations.

Responsibilities

• Own and prioritize the product backlog; align roadmaps with business goals and technology strategy.
• Translate internal customer needs into well-defined, valuable work for delivery teams.
• Lead discovery/validation; talk to users, interrogate data, test assumptions.
• Collaborate with engineers/architects to anticipate delivery risks and feasible solutions.
• Manage cross-team dependencies and keep stakeholders aligned.

Skills

Backlog ownership

Story writing

Stakeholder management

Data-driven prioritization

Agile delivery

Business acumen

Curiosity about business

Education

CSPO certification (nice to have)

Tools

Microsoft Dynamics 365

CRM platforms (Salesforce/HubSpot)

Power Platform familiarity

Job description

This role sits in the Product Management team within Sage Technology, the department responsible for building and maintaining the systems that run our business. You will report into Product Management and work alongside other product owners, product managers, engineers, and architects across the technology estate.

Your product is Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and your internal customers are our college textbook sales and journal advertising sales divisions. Dynamics is where their pipeline is managed, customer relationships are tracked, and revenue decisions get made. You own the backlog for that platform and you are accountable for making it genuinely better for the people who depend on it every day.

This is a role for a technologist with real commercial awareness. You will spend your time between two worlds: out in the business understanding what is slowing sales teams down, and back with your delivery team turning that into work that ships. Because Dynamics sits at the center of several business processes, you will also manage dependencies with other product teams inside Sage Technology.

What you will do

• Own and prioritize the product backlog, making clear decisions about sequencing and trade-offs, and keeping the roadmap connected to both business objectives and the wider technology strategy.

• Build strong relationships with your internal customers in textbook sales and journal advertising sales, translating their needs into well-defined, valuable work for the delivery team.

• Lead discovery and validation. Talk to users, interrogate the data, and test assumptions before committing engineering effort.

• Partner closely with engineers and architects in Sage Technology, developing enough technical understanding of the platform to anticipate delivery risks and shape feasible solutions.

• Manage competing priorities and cross-team dependencies within the technology estate, negotiating openly when demands conflict and keeping stakeholders aligned on what is happening and why.

• Define what success looks like, then measure it. Use adoption data, performance metrics, and user feedback to judge whether changes actually worked.

• Contribute to the Product Management team's own practice, supporting your delivery team's agile ways of working and mentoring colleagues in good product habits.

What you will bring

• 3-5 years of experience as a product owner, product manager, or in a comparable role, with hands-on responsibility for a backlog. If your experience sits slightly outside that range but you can show the capability, we would still like to hear from you.

• A track record of writing clear user stories and acceptance criteria, and running effective refinement with a delivery team.

• Strong stakeholder management. You can hold your ground with senior people, say no with a reason, and keep relationships intact.

• Confidence working with data to inform prioritization, and the critical thinking to question what the numbers are actually telling you.

• Experience working in agile delivery teams, ideally with colleagues in multiple locations and time zones.

• Genuine curiosity about the business you support and the users you serve.

Preferred Requirements

• Experience with Microsoft Dynamics 365, or with another CRM platform such as Salesforce or HubSpot.

• Background in publishing, higher education, media, or advertising sales.

• Experience with system integrations, data migration, or the wider Microsoft Power Platform.

• Experience supporting teams through changes in process or tooling.

• A product owner or agile certification such as CSPO. Helpful context, not a requirement.

We are more interested in how you think than in whether you tick every box.

Pay Transparency & Benefits Package:

Sage Publishing is committed to being an inclusive employer where all individuals are treated with fairness and respect. Sage is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer.

Compensation at Sage is influenced by several factors, including but not limited to skill set, nature and level of experience, qualifications, and other relevant considerations. Please note that the compensation details listed in U.S. role postings reflect the base salary only and do not include bonuses or benefits. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range and additional aspects of the compensation/benefits package for this position during the hiring process. If your desired salary falls outside of this range, we hope you'll still apply as there may be other positions that better align.

In addition to compensation, Sage offers a highly competitive and comprehensive PPO medical, dental, and vision care benefits package with SAGE covering most of the premium costs. Unique program benefits that support a healthy life, a company-sponsored anniversary trip every 5 years, a 401(k)-matching program of 100% up to 5% of pay, and other significant meaningful benefits. In alignment with our value for education, Sage offers financial support for bachelor's and graduate-level degree programs as well as learning for personal interest.

Sage offers freedom and autonomy in your day-to-day with hybrid or remote work, depending on the role. Join the nearly 2,000 Sage employees worldwide who deliver products and services that serve to fulfill our noble goal of education and dissemination of knowledge globally. We'd love to meet you!

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Sage Publishing is committed to being an inclusive employer where all individuals are treated with fairness and respect, regardless of age, disability, gender identity, marriage and partnership status, pregnancy and parental responsibilities, race, religion and belief, sex, or sexual orientation.

We believe that diversity is a cornerstone of a vibrant culture. We want Sage to be an organization where the most talented staff and high-potential staff are recruited, have the opportunity to grow, and want to work. We strive to achieve a better representation of diverse talent at all levels, including leadership, across our workforce.