Sr. Principal Product Owner

Akaasa Technologies; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Akaasa Technologies is seeking a Product Owner to drive the Cloud and Technical Services value stream within Enterprise Platforms & Enablement. You will champion the shift from project to product, define a compelling product vision, and partner with stakeholders to deliver high-impact cloud capabilities.

You will lead an agile, SAFe-aligned team, manage the backlog, and ensure delivery of measurable business value.

Qualifications

• SAFe 6.0 Product Owner/Product Manager Certification or 3+ years of Scaled Agile product ownership or product management in a large organization
• ITIL certification and ITSM experience preferred
• Typically, a minimum of 5+ years as an agile product owner and a bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience

Responsibilities

• Act as the primary voice of the customer and manage the product backlog reflecting business priorities
• Develop and communicate a clear product vision and strategy aligned with business goals
• Prioritize features and user stories based on business value and feasibility
• Translate business needs into well-defined features, user stories, and acceptance criteria
• Collaborate with stakeholders to align on product vision and roadmap
• Coordinate with Product Manager and portfolio leadership to ensure cohesive features across teams
• Champion SAFe principles and agile methodologies across the organization
• Contribute to a product roadmap with delivery schedules and milestones
• Define and track success metrics to measure value and guide pivots
• Demonstrate leadership and strong communication bridging business needs and delivery
• Lead cloud-focused initiatives within Cloud Operations or related cloud product areas
• Utilize Jira Software, Confluence, FigJam, Jira Align for collaboration

Skills

Product ownership

Vision & Strategy

Prioritization

Requirements gathering

Stakeholder engagement

Agile SAFe

Roadmap development

Metrics & analytics

Leadership

Cloud Operations

Jira

Confluence

FigJam

Jira Align

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Jira Software

Confluence

FigJam

Jira Align

Job description

Job Description

The Product Owner role is critical to supporting the Cloud, Observability, DR, and CloudOps teams as a newly launched value stream within the Enterprise Platforms & Enablement (EPE) portfolio. The Product Owner Cloud and Technical Services defines, prioritises, and delivers capabilities that enable effective, product-focused cloud services across multiple vectors. This role bridges business stakeholders, technology teams, and platform administrators to ensure solutions deliver measurable business value, improve operational efficiency, strengthen compliance, and support organizational objectives.
The broader EPE portfolio empowers lines of business by delivering and modernizing technology platforms and operations, enhancing engineering practices, and driving greater reliability, resiliency, and agility.
This role will drive the shift from a project-to-product model, championing the delivery and ongoing evolution of "platform as a product." You will play a crucial role in ensuring the successful delivery of digital products, capabilities, and services, leveraging strong business and process knowledge at Client. You will be a member of a cross-functional team and serve as the guiding voice of the customer for a major digital product to guide development teams in releasing capabilities with the highest business and customer impact.
This role will drive the shift from a project to product model, championing the delivery and ongoing evolution of "platform as a product." You will play a crucial role in ensuring the successful delivery of digital products, capabilities, and services, leveraging strong business and process knowledge at Client. You will be a member of a cross-functional team and serve as the guiding voice of the customer for a major digital product to guide development teams in releasing capabilities with the highest business and customer impact.
This role will drive the shift from a project to product model, championing the delivery and ongoing evolution of "platform as a product." You will play a crucial role in ensuring the successful delivery of digital products, capabilities, and services, leveraging strong business and process knowledge at Client. You will be a member of a cross-functional team and serve as the guiding voice of the customer for a major digital product to guide development teams in releasing capabilities with the highest business and customer impact.
This role will drive the shift from a project to product model, championing the delivery and ongoing evolution of "platform as a product." You will play a crucial role in ensuring the successful delivery of digital products, capabilities, and services, leveraging strong business and process knowledge at Client. You will be a member of a cross-functional team and serve as the guiding voice of the customer for a major digital product to guide development teams in releasing capabilities with the highest business and customer impact.
This role will drive the shift from a project to product model, championing the delivery and ongoing evolution of "platform as a product." You will play a crucial role in ensuring the successful delivery of digital products, capabilities, and services, leveraging strong business and process knowledge at Client. You will be a member of a cross-functional team and serve as the guiding voice of the customer for a major digital product to guide development teams in releasing capabilities with the highest business and customer impact.
This role will drive the shift from a project to product model, championing the delivery and ongoing evolution of "platform as a product." You will play a crucial role in ensuring the successful delivery of digital products, capabilities, and services, leveraging strong business and process knowledge at Client. You will be a member of a cross-functional team and serve as the guiding voice of the customer for a major digital product to guide development teams in releasing capabilities with the highest business and customer impact.

Responsibilities

• Product Ownership: Act as the primary voice of the customer and point of contact for the product, managing the product backlog for the team, ensuring that it reflects business priorities and drives value
• Vision and Strategy: Develop and communicate a clear product vision and strategy, ensuring alignment with business goals and customer needs.
• Prioritization: Prioritize features and user stories based on business value, customer feedback, and technical feasibility, ensuring the team works on high-priority items
• Requirements Gathering and Feature Development: Partner with product management and the team to translate business needs into well-defined features, user stories, and acceptance criteria; elicit and refine product requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria to provide a clear understanding for development teams
• Stakeholder Engagement: Collaborate with stakeholders, including business leaders, customers, and development teams, to ensure everyone is aligned with the product vision
• Cross-Team Collaboration: Coordinate with Product Manager , portfolio product leadership and other Product Owners to ensure that features for customers and frontline employees are cohesive and deliver business value towards running a successful passenger railroad
• Agile Framework: Implement and champion the principles of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), ensuring agile methodologies are followed
• Roadmap Development: Contribute to a product roadmap that outlines the delivery schedule and milestones
• Metrics and Analysis: Define and track success metrics to measure the value and identify areas for improvement or pivots
• Leadership & Communication: Strong leadership, communication, and facilitation skills, with the ability to bridge the gap between business needs and technical delivery
• Demonstrated understanding of agile methodologies and the SAFe framework
• Ability to prioritize and make data-driven decisions
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills
• Experience leading a cloud-focused team, working in Cloud Operations or leading product for a cloud-focused organization
• Experience with Jira Software, Confluence, FigJam, Jira Align, and similar tools

Required

• SAFe 6.0 Product Owner/Product Manager Certification or 3+ years of Scaled Agile product ownership or product management in a large organization.
• Strong preference for an ITIL certification and demonstrated experience with ITSM

Required

• Typically, a minimum of 5+ years as an agile product owner and a bachelor's degree; equivalent combination of related work experience/schooling instead of a degree