Product Owner (Hybrid - Raleigh or Jersey City)

Overview With a company culture rooted in collaboration, expertise and innovation, we aim to promote progress and inspire our clients, employees, investors and communities to achieve their greatest potential. Our work is the catalyst that helps others achieve their goals. In short, we enable possibility™. We are seeking a forward‑thinking Product Owner who thrives in a fast‑paced, Agile environment and brings strong experience managing complex work with cross‑team dependencies. This role is the ‘voice of the customer’ within the Agile development team and is responsible for supporting the optimization of business outcomes and product development process on our digital transformation efforts. Hybrid (3 days onsite per week) – Raleigh, NC is highly preferred. Jersey City, NJ is a secondary location and will be considered as needed. Responsibilities Product Backlog Management: Create, maintain and prioritize the product backlog, ensuring items align with product vision, strategy and business objectives, and reflect evolving business needs and priorities. User Story Refinement: Ensure user stories are clear, concise and well defined to accurately represent the business need and fit with the product strategy. Break down stories into small parts, clarify details and ensure usability. Prioritization: Collaborate with the product manager to focus on the highest value work based on business needs, product strategy, initiative delivery and user feedback. Rank backlog items and sequence them according to high value. Team Collaboration: Facilitate communication and collaboration between the development team, designers, and other stakeholders. Sprint and Increment Planning: Collaborate with the domain product manager and development team to define sprint goals, select user stories, and facilitate sprint planning aligned with team capacity and domain priorities. Acceptance Criteria: Define clear acceptance criteria for each user story to ensure quality and delivery expectations are met. Release Management: Plan and manage product releases in line with the product and initiative delivery strategy. Resolve questions, manage dependencies and communicate emerging priorities as stories are implemented. Metrics and Analysis: Track and analyze key product metrics to measure success and identify areas for improvement. Check progress toward story acceptance criteria and ensure quality standards are met, such as Definition of Done and non‑functional requirements. Collaborate closely with the team to identify and fix quality issues. Qualifications Excellent written and oral communication skills, including the ability to influence and present complex technical information to varying stakeholder groups, gather and provide feedback, and engage effectively with diverse teams across the organization. Proven experience playing a product owner role in the development of large‑scale commercial and specialty systems (e.g., DuckCreek, Guidewire, Unqork, UW Platforms, Submission & Clearance Systems, Extraction or AI‑driven platforms) and demonstrated value creation and business outcomes. Ability to lead, partner and guide multiple Agile teams (Dev, QA, Design) and business teams in achieving product goals and resolving conflicts. Experience developing productive relationships across the organization and empathy with users to advocate for their needs in alignment with the domain’s product strategy. Advanced technical and business acumen to articulate business outcomes and translate them into technical user stories for various development teams. Proficiency with teamwork, interpersonal skills, communication, technical analysis, problem solving, continuous improvement and service skills. Self‑starter demonstrating flexibility, accountability, adaptability and the ability to work independently with minimal guidance while managing ambiguity. Experience with Agile frameworks such as Scrum and SAFe, and tools such as JIRA, Confluence, MIRO and other product management and roadmap tools. Deep understanding of commercial and specialty insurance product lifecycle. Education & Experience Bachelor’s Degree in a related field. Certified Scrum Product Owner and/or SAFe® POPM certification strongly preferred. 5–7 years prior experience in insurance, product owner with IT development teams in Agile delivery & execution through the software development lifecycle using Agile/Scrum/SAFe frameworks or related roles. Compensation & Benefits Base salary range: $100,000 – $150,000 per year. Position incentive eligible. Total individual compensation (base salary, short‑ and long‑term incentives) is offered and may be modified in the future. Benefits include multiple medical plans plus dental, vision and prescription drug coverage; competitive 401(k) with generous matching; PTO starting at 20 days per year; up to 12 paid company holidays per year plus 2 paid days of volunteer time offer; basic life and AD&D insurance as well as short‑ and long‑term disability; paid parental leave up to 10 weeks; student loan assistance and tuition reimbursement; backup child and elder care and more. #J-18808-Ljbffr McNeil & Co.