Technical Product Owner, Enterprise Search & AI

3M Company; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 146,000 - 178,000; Full time

Job summary

3M Company in Austin, TX is seeking a Technical Product Owner for Enterprise Search & AI to bridge strategic roadmaps with sprint execution across search infrastructure, AI retrieval, and digital experiences.

You will translate long-term vision into detailed user stories and acceptance criteria, prioritize the daily backlog, and guide agile ceremonies with the Enterprise Search Tech Lead and vendor engineers.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or other technical field.
• Seven years of experience in technical product ownership, including minimum three years owning/search/data/AI portfolios.

Responsibilities

• Translate long-term search and AI platform vision into detailed user stories, technical specs, and acceptance criteria.
• Prioritize pod-level backlog to optimize sprint velocity and engineering throughput.
• Guide agile ceremonies and ensure alignment on search relevance tuning and AI model integration.
• Verify UAT against defined benchmarks for search performance, relevance, API response times, and AI quality.
• Coordinate release schedules and CI/CD with PMO and engineers.

Skills

Technical product ownership

Product leadership

Stakeholder management

Education

Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science

Seven+ years in technical product ownership

Job description

Job Description:

Technical Product Owner, Enterprise Search & AI

Collaborate with Innovative 3Mers Around the World

Choosing where to start and grow your career has a major impact on your professional and personal life, so it’s equally important you know that the company that you choose to work at, and its leaders, will support and guide you. With a wide variety of people, global locations, technologies and products, 3M is a place where you can collaborate with other curious, creative 3Mers.

This position provides an opportunity to transition from other private, public, government or military experience to a 3M career

The Impact You’ll Make in this Role

As a Technical Product Owner for Enterprise Search & AI, you will serve as the critical operational bridge between strategic platform roadmaps and technical sprint execution for 3M’s enterprise search ecosystem. Operating as an individual contributor within a cross-functional pod, you will deconstruct high-level business needs into actionable technical requirements across search infrastructure, AI-powered retrieval, and digital experience platforms, prioritizing the day-to-day tactical backlog to deliver scalable, high-performance search capabilities that power digital commerce, content discovery, and emerging AI applications. Here, you will make an impact by:

• Backlog & Requirement Engineering - Translating the Director of Product & Portfolio Management’s long-term search and AI platform vision into highly detailed user stories, technical specifications, and structured acceptance criteria spanning search API enhancements, ingestion pipeline improvements, index architecture changes, and AI retrieval features.

• Tactical Backlog Prioritization - Owning, refining, and prioritizing the day-to-day pod-level backlog to optimize sprint velocity and engineering throughput across the enterprise search stack, balancing platform reliability work against new AI-driven capabilities such as hybrid retrieval, semantic search, and RAG-enabled experiences.

• Sprint Execution Guidance - Partnering daily with the Enterprise Search Tech Lead and vendor engineers to provide absolute clarity on execution requirements during agile ceremonies, ensuring alignment on search relevance tuning, infrastructure-as-code changes, and AI model integration work.

• Product Quality & Acceptance - Serving as the gatekeeper for user acceptance testing (UAT), verifying that vendor-built and internally developed artifacts strictly adhere to defined technical benchmarks for search performance, relevance accuracy, API response times, and AI output quality before release.

• Adoption & Platform Feedback - Monitoring search platform utilization, tracking adoption metrics across consuming applications (product navigator, digital commerce, AI assistants), and funneling real-world feedback on search relevance and AI feature effectiveness back to the Product & Portfolio Management director.

• AI & Search Capability Evolution - Defining and prioritizing product requirements for the platform’s evolution toward hybrid retrieval approaches combining lexical and semantic/vector search, supporting RAG pipelines, LLM grounding, and agentic AI use cases that drive competitive advantage.

• Multi-Feature Capability Mapping - Mastering competing business group requirements across interconnected search, content, and AI platform modules, governing dependencies and release schedules across ingestion workflows, search APIs, and downstream digital experiences.

• Shared Accountability: Release & Deployment - Co-owning product release schedules and deployment calendar targets alongside Program/Project Managers (PVMO), coordinating CI/CD pipeline releases and infrastructure changes.

• Shared Accountability: Technical Quality - Co-owning software quality metrics, architectural alignment, and technical debt constraints with the Enterprise Search Tech Lead (TSL), including search index health, pipeline reliability, and AI model performance.

• Shared Accountability: Business Value - Co-owning business value metrics and customer satisfaction feedback loops with the assigned Business Relationship Manager (BRM), including search relevance KPIs and AI feature adoption rates.

Key Responsibilities:

• Backlog & Requirement Engineering - Translate the Director of Product & Portfolio Management’s long-term search and AI platform vision into detailed user stories, technical specifications, and structured acceptance criteria covering search API enhancements, ingestion pipeline improvements, index architecture changes, and AI retrieval features.

• Tactical Backlog Prioritization - Own, refine, and prioritize the day-to-day pod-level backlog to optimize sprint velocity and engineering throughput, balancing platform reliability work against new AI-driven capabilities (hybrid retrieval, semantic search, RAG-enabled experiences).

• Sprint Execution Guidance - Partner daily with the Enterprise Search Tech Lead and vendor engineers to provide clarity on execution requirements during agile ceremonies, ensuring alignment on search relevance tuning, infrastructure-as-code changes, and AI model integration work.

• Product Quality & Acceptance - Serve as the gatekeeper for user acceptance testing (UAT), verifying that vendor-built and internally developed artifacts meet defined technical benchmarks for search performance, relevance accuracy, API response times, and AI output quality before release.

• Adoption & Platform Feedback - Monitor search platform utilization, track adoption metrics across consuming applications (product navigator, digital commerce, AI assistants), and funnel real-world feedback on search relevance and AI feature effectiveness back to the Product & Portfolio Management director.

• AI & Search Capability Evolution - Define and prioritize product requirements for the platform’s evolution toward hybrid retrieval approaches (lexical + semantic/vector search), supporting RAG pipelines, LLM grounding, and agentic AI use cases.

• Multi-Feature Capability Mapping - Master competing business group requirements across interconnected search, content, and AI platform modules, governing dependencies and release schedules across ingestion workflows, search APIs, and downstream digital experiences.

• Shared Accountability: Release & Deployment - Co-own product release schedules and deployment calendar targets alongside Program/Project Managers (PVMO), coordinating CI/CD pipeline releases and infrastructure changes.

• Shared Accountability: Technical Quality - Co-own software quality metrics, architectural alignment, and technical debt constraints with the Enterprise Search Tech Lead, including search index health, pipeline reliability, and AI model performance.

• Shared Accountability: Business Value - Co-own business value metrics and customer satisfaction feedback loops with the assigned Business Relationship Manager (BRM), including search relevance KPIs and AI feature adoption rates.

Your Skills and Expertise

To set you up for success in this role from day one, 3M requires (at a minimum) the following qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or other technical field (completed and verified prior to start)
• Seven (7) years of experience in technical product ownership, product management, or software engineering, including a minimum of three (3) years owning or managing search, data platform, or AI-driven product portfolios, in a private, public, government, or military environment

Work location:

• 3M Center, Maplewood, MN or 3M Facility, Austin, TX

This role follows an on-site working model, requiring the employee to work at least four days a week at either the 3M Center in Maplewood, MN or the 3M Facility in Austin, TX.

Travel: May include up to 10% domestic or international

Relocation: May be authorized

Must be legally authorized to work in country of employment without sponsorship for employment visa status (e.g., H1B status).

Supporting Your Well-being

3M offers many programs to help you live your best life - both physically and financially. To ensure competitive pay and benefits, 3M regularly benchmarks with other companies that are comparable in size and scope.

Applicable to US Applicants Only: The expected compensation range for this position is $145,676 - $178,049, which includes base pay plus variable incentive pay, if eligible. This range represents a good faith estimate for this position. The specific compensation offered to a candidate may vary based on factors including, but not limited to, the candidate’s relevant knowledge, training, skills, work location, and/or experience. In addition, this position may be eligible for a range of benefits (e.g., Medical, Dental & Vision, Health Savings Accounts, Health Care & Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts, Disability Benefits, Life Insurance, Voluntary Benefits, Paid Absences and Retirement Benefits, etc.). Additional information is available at: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/careers-us/working-at-3m/benefits/

3M does not discriminate in hiring or employment on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.