Product Owner

Product Owner

It is inspiring to work in an organization where individuals are deeply committed to the mission and values that drive our success. We are dedicated to delivering expert pension service to Illinois public educators as they earn their promised retirement security.

Job Summary: Under the direction of the IT Manager of Product, the Product Owner is the voice of the business and proactively represents internal stakeholders by delivering the highest possible value to the business. Through the creation, prioritization, management and execution of the product backlog, the Product Owner collaborates cross-functionally and focuses the development team(s) on a clear vision of the product, its goals and delivery. The product owner has deep customer knowledge, an excellent ability to transform strategic intent into fully elaborated requirements in the form of user stories, feature specifications and acceptance criteria. This position ensures all stakeholders and team members are well educated about both the current state of available functionality, and its value to the organization, as well as the short- and longer-term product goals. The Product Owner drives and articulates product value delivery via agile ceremonies including sprint planning, backlog refinement, daily stand-ups, demo and retrospectives seeking improvement through every iteration/sprint. As a functional leader, the Product Owner may serve on multiple committees related to IT audit and compliance and may be a voting member of the Change Advisory Board (CAB). The incumbent will provide mentorship to team members on triaging and responding to first level production support issues and serves as the escalation point for advanced level production support and is a member of the IT Incident Response team. This position may be involved in new software project initiatives that include planning, requirements, configuration, integrations, implementation and production support. The incumbent must have working knowledge of Agile Principles and preferably Scrum Methodology. The Product Owner is expected to have skilled interaction with the Agile development teams and business stakeholders and should display the following characteristics: Be open to new ideas and encourage innovative practices amongst peers; Practice positive interactions - leans on encouragement in place of judgment; Impress responsibility on others by displaying ownership in tasks; Act in the interest of the overall team; Able to multi-task in a fast paced, fluid work environment; Capable of presenting technical ideas and concepts in business-friendly language; Strong communication skills, emotional intelligence, humility, and drive; Must be able to work in a self-driven manner within a fast-paced environment.

Essential Functions:

• Proactively supports stakeholders throughout the organization by providing solutions to their system application needs.
• Educating team members, stakeholders and leaders on core product foundations/infrastructure, software development lifecycle (SDLC) practices, feature functionality, business processes, short- and long-term product goals
• The Product Owner is responsible for staying up to date with legislative changes and scheduling routine job shadowing to ensure value to the business areas and that deliverables are aligned with the vision.
• Collaborates with the leadership team to establish product vision and create roadmaps for existing and new applications.
• Participate in multiple committees for IT audit and compliance which includes but is not limited to, internal and external audit requests, reviewing new policies and procedures, annual review of established policies and procedures and risk assessments.
• Presents product changes to CAB, may serve as a voting member of CAB, and participates in change management activities.
• Develop deep functional product knowledge to understand and assess the business value of requested changes based on return on investment, risk, time criticality and effort.
• Perform data-driven analytical research and analysis utilizing PowerBI, SQL database queries, end user feedback and other tools to gather, interpret and analyze data. The goal is to provide insights and offer recommendations to stakeholders that assists in product design efforts, defining scope for product initiatives and to prioritize the work effort.
• Conduct in-depth analysis into software code and/or data to identify root cause of production incidents and inform stakeholders of resolution outcome.
• Assist with documenting product initiatives and identifying what work will be considered in scope or out of scope for each initiative. Product Owners prioritize the product backlog based on these initiatives.
• Accountable for planning the release cycles in-line with the product road map, highlighting key risks and constraints to the release planning process and actively managing them to remove blockers for the team to return value on product changes.
• Empowered decision making based on current information and keeping stakeholders informed through email, creating/presenting high-level progress reports and providing demos for current work in progress to elicit feedback from end users and establish confidence that the delivery team clearly understands the business needs.
• Coordinate with product delivery team(s) and design colleagues to ensure the required activities are delivered to sufficient/agreed quality, time and budget so that the product enhancements or maintenance is available across the organization.
• Identify, create and maintain mapping documents used to visualize current and newly defined business processes
• Proactively act as the voice of the end users, ensuring the IT team understands and meets user needs through the development process.
• Synchronize with other Product Owners to ensure new work is brought into the backlog and prioritized appropriately across teams.
• Work with System Architecture/Engineering to understand database structures, help define system architecture standards, maintain data dictionaries and assist with documenting and communicating these structures and standards to end users as needed.
• Create and modify UI/UX designs that represent the user requirements while accurately representing the design of the data, the table structure in the database as well as maintaining product design standards.

Knowledge, Skill, Ability:

• Excellent verbal, written and attention to detail skills.
• Ability to resolve conflict for the team and within the team; influencing internal stakeholders
• Strong organizational, interpersonal and time management skills.
• Exposure to technical concepts, product owner techniques, tools & principles

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in business, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field; or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
• 2+ years of experience as a Product Owner, or 3+ years as a Business Analyst, or similar role within an Agile environment.
• Solid understanding of Agile frameworks (Scrum, Kanban) and Product Management principles.
• Proven ability to translate business needs into clear, actionable user stories, acceptance criteria, and product backlog items.
• Experience working with cross-functional teams, including developers, QA, and stakeholders.
• Strong prioritization, organization, and decision-making skills.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and interpersonal skills.
• Proficiency with Agile project management tools (e.g., Jira, Azure DevOps, etc).

Preferred Qualifications:

• Relevant Agile/Product Owner certifications such as Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner (A-CSPO), or Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO)
• Background in user experience (UX) design principles or customer journey mapping.
• Experience in data-driven decision-making and product analytics.
• Familiarity with API-driven product development or technical integrations.

If you thrive in a dynamic environment and enjoy collaborating with driven, enthusiastic professionals, you will find a rewarding career with us.

For Illinois job seekers:

Pay Range: $86,256.83 - $134,561.00

Compensation will be determined based on the qualifications and experience of each candidate.

Benefits: TRS is an agency of the State of Illinois. As such, full and part-time employees are eligible for the State of Illinois comprehensive benefits program which includes medical, dental and vision coverage. All employees participate in the TRS retirement pension plan and have the option to contribute to additional State of Illinois deferred compensation plans. The TRS pension plan is a reciprocal system to other state and local pension plans (SERS, SURS, IMRF, etc.)