Product Owner, Sr

Job Description:

Cross-Domain and Delivery Expectations

§  Lead a product line and drive its overall performance, strategy, and success across the full lifecycle from concept through launch, ongoing support, and retirement.

§  Partner with and influence senior executives to align product strategy, roadmaps, plans, and implementation priorities.

§  Own multi-team backlog prioritization against product outcomes and delivery constraints, not just stakeholder requests.

§  Run recurring discovery and translate insights into roadmap and prioritization decisions with direct business impact.

§  Drive release readiness, scope commitment, and acceptance criteria across multiple Agile teams.

§  Create urgency, motivate cross-functional teams, and proactively address risks to meet committed launch dates.

Key Responsibilities & Outcomes

§  Lead the assigned product line and drive its overall performance and success.

§  Partner with and influence senior executives to align product strategy, roadmaps, plans, and implementation priorities.

§  Manage the product line’s technical lifecycle from concept through launch, ongoing support, and retirement.

§  Develop product strategy and detailed requirements by analyzing market segments, customer needs, and business opportunities; translate insights into a compelling, actionable roadmap.

§  Define and prioritize functional requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, and objectives for current and future products.

§  Serve as an active member of Scrum teams, sharing accountability for product delivery, quality, robustness, and reliability.

§  Own backlog refinement, prioritization, and readiness; clarify requirements and accept completed user stories.

§  Run recurring discovery (interviews, usability testing, surveys, data analysis) and convert insights into roadmap decisions.

§  Coordinate the development of tools and launch materials, including contracts, technical specifications, go-to-market content, and post-launch monitoring documentation.

§  Prioritize defect resolution and operational activities to maintain product performance, stability, and availability.

§  Collaborate with Marketing, Sales, and Service to develop product positioning, demonstrations, training, and sales enablement materials.

§  Communicate roadmap status, decisions, and risks clearly to the team and cross-functional stakeholders.

§  Mentor fellow Product Owners and other product team members.

§  Build professional, collaborative relationships with internal and external clients and customers.

§  Perform other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications

Education

§  Bachelor’s degree required

Experience

§  5+ years of experience as a Product Owner with software for mission-critical products, working with Agile methodology.

§  Proven experience in customer development, product definition, feature scoping, and balancing trade-offs for industry-leading business software products.

§  Datacenter/IT Infrastructure experience required.

§  Demonstrated experience leading a product line or multi-team initiative, with ownership of roadmap and measurable business outcomes.

§  Experience running discovery and translating insights into prioritization decisions.

§  Ability to write clear requirements, acceptance criteria, and release scope.

§  Strong stakeholder alignment and presentation skills across engineering, design, and senior business partners.

§  Background in engineering, technology, or UX preferred.

Preferred Qualifications

§  Experience with SaaS or cloud-based products in an enterprise environment.

§  Experience with backlog management and discovery tooling (Jira, Azure DevOps, or equivalent).

§  Experience in financial reporting, regulated communications, or other relevant Toppan Merrill business domains.

§  Experience mentoring or coaching Product Owners at earlier career stages.

AI Use Expectations

§  Discovery synthesis: Use AI-assisted tools to help cluster qualitative research data, identify patterns across interview transcripts, and accelerate affinity mapping across a product line. Validate all AI-generated themes against source material before presenting findings or making roadmap decisions.

§  Requirements drafting: Use AI tools to generate draft user stories, acceptance criteria, and release notes. Review and refine all AI-generated requirements for accuracy, completeness, and alignment with stakeholder input before committing them to the backlog.

§  Backlog analysis: Use AI-assisted tools to surface prioritization patterns, flag stale items, and identify dependency clusters across a multi-team backlog. Human judgment governs all prioritization and sequencing decisions.

§  Competitive and market research: Use AI tools to summarize publicly available product reviews, industry trends, and competitor patterns to accelerate discovery. Cite sources and verify claims independently before incorporating into strategy artifacts.

§  Stakeholder communication: Use AI tools to draft roadmap summaries, release communications, and executive briefings. Review and refine all AI-generated communications for accuracy and appropriate tone before distribution.

Accountability and Oversight

§  You are accountable for every product decision made within your product line, regardless of whether AI tools contributed to the analysis. AI accelerates; it does not decide.

§  Apply the same rigor to AI-generated output as to independently produced work. Do not present AI-generated artifacts as final without review and iteration.

§  When mentoring Product Owners, model responsible AI use explicitly: demonstrate how to validate, critique, and improve AI output, not just how to prompt for it.

§  Validate AI-assisted discovery synthesis and requirements against actual user and stakeholder input before treating them as final.