Sr. Product Owner - Container Platform

T-MOBILE USA, Inc.; Frisco (TX); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading telecommunications company is seeking a skilled Sr. Product Owner for their Container Platform team. This role involves managing Agile backlogs, collaborating on user stories, and driving Kubernetes initiatives. The ideal candidate has strong experience in product management, especially within cloud infrastructure. Competitive salary and a progressive work environment are offered.

Benefits

Competitive base salary

Comprehensive rewards package

Qualifications

• 4-7 years of product management or related experience.
• Strong background in Kubernetes and cloud platforms.
• Experience in Agile software development environments.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain Agile team backlog.
• Collaborate to write user stories for Kubernetes deployments.
• Run PO sync meetings with other POs.

Skills

Kubernetes expertise

DevOps collaboration

Analytical skills

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering or related field

Master's Degree (preferred)

Tools

Jira

Helm

ArgoCD

AWS

Azure

Job description

At T-Mobile, we invest in YOU! Our Total Rewards Package ensures that employees get the same big love we give our customers. All team members receive a competitive base salary and compensation package - this is Total Rewards.

The Sr. Product Owner (PO) for the Container Platform is a critical member of the extended Product Management team and serves as a bridge between business stakeholders, engineering teams, and operations for both cloud-native and on-premises Kubernetes platforms.

The Sr. PO is responsible for the Team/Sprint backlog, acting as the single source of truth and primary point of contact to development and customer teams for user story details. They are responsible for defining and refining user stories, prioritizing the backlog, and ensuring delivery of platform capabilities that maintain high availability, scalability, and security of containerized workloads.

This role requires a deep understanding of Kubernetes, container orchestration, hybrid-cloud infrastructure, and DevOps practices. The Sr. PO collaborates closely with engineering teams to streamline execution of priorities while maintaining conceptual and technical integrity.

The Sr. PO ensures that the backlog contains at least 2 iterations worth of 'ready' work, driving velocity and quality in delivery. They also own acceptance of user stories, ensuring alignment with business needs, acceptance criteria, and operational readiness.

Beyond Agile team responsibilities, the Sr. PO partners with Product Management on product vision and roadmaps, contributes to Program Increment (PI) Planning, and works cross-functionally with other POs to align container platform initiatives across the enterprise.

Job Responsibilities

• Build and maintain Agile (Scrum/Sprint) team backlog, with guidance from customers, Product Managers, System Architects, SREs, and platform engineers.
• Collaborate with teams to write user stories and requirements that incorporate technical acceptance criteria for Kubernetes deployments, containerized services, CI/CD integrations, and multi-cloud networking/security policies.
• Partner with stakeholders to prioritize features such as cluster lifecycle management, observability, security hardening, and platform self-service capabilities.
• Run PO sync meetings with other POs on larger/enterprise backlogs; mentor, coach, and guide Product Owners in the container platform and DevOps space.
• Review and accept completed stories, ensuring deployments meet operational readiness and enterprise standards (e.g., scalability, resilience, compliance).
• Support Product Managers in creating/managing the product vision and roadmap for the Container Platform, including hybrid-cloud adoption and integration with enterprise systems.
• Ensure smooth collaboration between development, SRE, security, and infrastructure teams to deliver a reliable and developer-friendly platform.

Education and Work Experience

• Bachelor's Degree; Master's in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field preferred, or equivalent experience.
• 4-7 years Relevant Product Management, Product Owner, Business Analyst, and System Analyst or Architecture/Software Engineer experience in an agile software product development environment.
• 4+ years relevant Product Management or Product Owner experience in cloud, infrastructure, or platform engineering domains.
• Experience in Agile software development environments, preferably with developer platform products.
• Strong background in Kubernetes, container orchestration, and DevOps tooling (e.g., Helm, ArgoCD, Jenkins, GitOps).
• Familiarity with cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) and on-prem solutions (VMware Tanzu, OpenShift, bare-metal Kubernetes).

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Kubernetes Expertise: Strong understanding of Kubernetes cluster architecture, workload orchestration, networking, RBAC, and security best practices.
• Hybrid-Cloud & On-Prem Platforms: Hands-on knowledge of hybrid and multi-cloud environments and experience integrating Kubernetes with enterprise systems.
• Agile Practices: Deep experience with Agile methodologies and backlog/project management tools (e.g., Jira, Rally, ADO).
• DevOps & SRE Collaboration: Proven track record to work with DevOps and SRE teams on CI/CD pipelines, observability (Prometheus, Grafana), and automated deployments.
• Communication & Leadership: Ability to communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and influence at multiple organizational levels.
• Analytical Skills: Strong analytical skills with ability to use platform metrics (uptime, cost optimization, performance data) to drive product decisions.

Licenses and Certifications

• Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) or SAFe POPM (Preferred).
• Kubernetes certifications (CKA, CKAD, or CKS) strongly preferred.
• Cloud certifications (AWS/Azure/GCP) a plus.

T-Mobile USA, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All decisions concerning the employment relationship will be made without regard to age, race, ethnicity, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, religious affiliation, marital status, citizenship status, veteran status, the presence of any physical or mental disability, or any other status or characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. Discrimination, retaliation or harassment based upon any of these factors is wholly inconsistent with how we do business and will not be tolerated.