Technical Product Owner (O&G background w/SAFe Agile exp)

Aspen Technology; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Aspen Technology in Houston seeks a Technical Product Owner to guide Oil & Gas, refining, petrochemical, and supply chain software products. Working in a SAFe ART, you will translate strategy and customer workflows into a clear team backlog and collaborate with PM, Engineering, Architecture, UX, and Services.

You will own backlog readiness, define stories and acceptance criteria, and drive value across planning, scheduling, and release planning.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in technical product ownership or enterprise software delivery.
• Experience with SAFe or similar Agile framework and PI/Iteration cadences.
• Experience in Oil & Gas, refining, petrochemical, or supply chain software.

Responsibilities

• Own and prioritize the team backlog aligned with vision and PI objectives.
• Translate needs into features, stories, and acceptance criteria.
• Collaborate with Product Management, Engineering, and customers.
• Define value, sequencing, and acceptance criteria; validate outcomes.
• Support demos, release readiness, and customer adoption.

Skills

Product Ownership

Agile / SAFe

Backlog Management

Stakeholder Management

Requirements Writing

Cross-functional Collaboration

Education

Bachelor's or Master’s degree in a related field

Tools

Azure DevOps

Jira

Job description

The driving force behind our success has always been the people of AspenTech. What drives us, is our aspiration, our desire and ambition to keep pushing the envelope, overcoming any hurdle, challenging the status quo to continually find a better way. You will experience these qualities of passion, pride and aspiration in many ways — from a rich set of career development programs to support of community service projects to social events that foster fun and relationship building across our global community.

The Role

We are seeking a Technical Product Owner to guide the development of Oil & Gas, refining, petrochemical, and supply chain software products. Working within a SAFe Agile Release Train (ART), you will translate product strategy, customer workflows, and business priorities into a clear, executable team backlog. The Product Owner will partner with Product Management, Engineering, Architecture, UX, Quality, Services, and customers to define user stories and acceptance criteria, prioritize value, manage dependencies, and validate delivered capabilities. Prior hands‑on software development or programming experience is a strong plus and will enable effective technical collaboration with development teams.

Your Impact

• Own, refine, and prioritize the team backlog in alignment with product vision, roadmap priorities, customer commitments, and PI objectives
• Translate refinery, petrochemical, and supply chain needs into features, user stories, acceptance criteria, and non‑functional requirements
• Execute Product Owner responsibilities within the SAFe cadence, including PI Planning, backlog refinement, iteration planning, daily team collaboration, reviews, System Demos, and Inspect & Adapt
• Define story value, sequencing, and acceptance criteria; accept completed work based on agreed outcomes and quality expectations
• Collaborate with Product Management and customers to understand workflows across planning, scheduling, optimization, inventory, logistics, and distribution
• Partner with engineering and architecture to evaluate feasibility, technical trade‑offs, integrations, and dependencies
• Maintain backlog readiness for upcoming iterations and support feature decomposition, estimation, risk identification, and release planning
• Represent the customer and business perspective during development while balancing value, usability, quality, and technical sustainability
• Support product demonstrations, release readiness, customer validation, adoption, and issue prioritization
• Use delivery, flow, quality, and customer feedback metrics to drive transparency and continuous improvement

What You'll Need

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in Chemical Engineering, Computer Science, Industrial Engineering, Supply Chain, Mathematics, Operations Research, or a related field
• 5+ years of relevant experience in technical product ownership, business analysis, product development, or enterprise software delivery
• Practical experience as a Product Owner in SAFe or a comparable Agile framework, including backlog ownership and execution through PI and iteration cadences
• Experience developing software products for Oil & Gas, refining, petrochemical, manufacturing, or supply chain operations
• Working knowledge of refinery and supply chain workflows such as planning, scheduling, optimization, inventory management, logistics, distribution, or demand planning
• Strong ability to convert business and customer needs into clear, testable user stories and acceptance criteria
• Technical aptitude to collaborate on software architecture, data models, APIs, integrations, cloud platforms, and non‑functional requirements
• Experience using Agile lifecycle tools such as Azure DevOps (ADO), Jira, or similar
• Strong analytical, facilitation, stakeholder management, communication, writing, and presentation skills

Nice to Have

• Hands‑on programming or software development experience, preferably with C#/.NET, C++, SQL, APIs, or enterprise application platforms
• Knowledge of mathematical modeling, numerical methods, optimization, analytics, or decision‑support systems
• SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager or related Agile certification
• Experience with cloud‑based enterprise products, DevOps, CI/CD, or globally distributed development teams
• Experience working directly with refinery, petrochemical, energy, or supply chain customers

Key Emphasis: Technical Product Ownership in SAFe

This role requires disciplined execution of the Product Owner responsibilities within the SAFe delivery cadence. Success depends on maintaining a ready and prioritized backlog, defining clear acceptance criteria, enabling fast team decisions, validating business value, and ensuring continuous alignment among Product Management, customers, and engineering. A software development background is highly valued because it strengthens technical decision‑making and improves the translation of complex Oil & Gas and supply chain workflows into scalable product capabilities.