IT Product Owner

We are seeking an Information Technology (IT) Product Owner to own the direction, health, and business value of technology products, platforms, and capabilities that keep Dierbergs moving. This role goes beyond translating requirements into a backlog: the Product Owner is expected to understand the retail and grocery business deeply enough to share direction, make and defend tradeoffs, and act as a trusted advisor to stakeholders across the company.

This role is ideal for someone who pairs strong technical fluency with genuine business acumen and interpersonal skills to build alignment across store operations, merchandising, finance, vendors, and development teams. We're looking for a Product Owner who grows with the business: someone who stays current on retail and grocery technology trends, brings forward ideas before being asked, and communicates with the clarity and confidence to influence decisions at every level.

What You'll Do

Business Partnership & Stakeholder Management

• Serve as a strategic advisor. Act as the primary business partner for assigned domains, such as store systems, merchandising, pricing and promotion, supply chain, loyalty, and digital commerce. Proactively identify opportunities to improve processes, use AI, adopt new tools, and automate work for greater efficiency.
• Lead business process and delivery alignment. Translate business needs into clear business process workflow documentation, requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria; support backlog refinement and sprint planning; and lead demos and retrospectives with discipline, consistency, and a focus on operational impact.
• Stay ahead of the business. Research and evaluate emerging retail and grocery technology trends and proactively bring recommendations to invest, modernize, automate, or change course.

Product Adoption & Operational Excellence

• Own implementation readiness. Lead user acceptance testing, training materials, and adoption planning to ensure changes are effectively understood, adopted, and sustained by the business.
• Own production stability . Serve as an escalation point for production issues on owned products; lead support teams to diagnose, triage, prioritize, and communicate impacts to the business.

Vendor Management

• Own vendor relationships. Build strong, accountable relationships with vendors and act as the primary liaison between functional departments, outside vendors, and the IT team - including holding vendors to delivery, support, and quality commitments.
• Lead product direction. Lead and influence the product vision, roadmap, and prioritization for assigned products, platforms, and business capabilities, anchoring every decision in business value, not just technical feasibility.

Driving Alignment & Developing Talent

• Build organizational alignment. Facilitate discussions that clarify business needs, establish priorities, resolve competing demands, and drive informed decision-making across business, IT, and vendor teams.
• Develop the team around you. Share knowledge, mentor less experienced team members, and help strengthen product ownership capabilities across the team.

Core Competencies

Beyond technical and product skills, we expect every Product Owner on our team to demonstrate the following:

• Business Acumen & Strategic Thinking: Understands how the products they own connect to broader business goals - margin, member experience, associate productivity, operational efficiency - and makes recommendations.
• Communication & Influence: Conveys ideas clearly and persuasively to audiences ranging from store associates to senior leadership; listens actively; adjusts style and message to the audience; comfortable delivering difficult news or pushing back on scope.
• Collaboration & Teaming: Builds genuine partnerships across business, IT, and vendor teams; resolves conflict constructively; shares credit and information freely; is viewed as easy and effective to work with, not just technically capable.
• Adaptability & Continuous Learning: Actively seeks out new tools, methods, and industry trends; adjusts approach as the business or technology landscape changes rather than defaulting to "how we've always done it."
• Customer & Associate Focus: Places the experience of the end customer and associate at the center of product decisions; balances efficiency with usability and adoption.
• Driving for Results: Sets clear, measurable goals; holds self and partners accountable to them; finds practical, differentiated solutions rather than settling for the first workable answer.

About You

Knowledge, Skills, and Attributes

• Demonstrated product ownership skills, stakeholder alignment, vendor management, prioritization, and influencing without authority.
• Strong knowledge of Agile and Kanban practices, including backlog management, sprint or iteration planning, demos, retrospectives, and continuous improvement.
• Ability to translate business needs into actionable product requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, test scenarios, and product decisions.
• Proven communication and facilitation skills, with the ability to bridge business stakeholders, technical teams, vendors, and leadership.
• Strong prioritization and decision-making skills, including the ability to evaluate business value, urgency, dependencies, effort, risk, and resource capacity.
• Comfort working in a small IT organization where team members are expected to think strategically, act with urgency, stay hands-on, communicate clearly, manage tradeoffs, and collaborate across business and technical teams to deliver practical outcomes.

Experience

• 5+ years of experience in Product Ownership, Product Management, Business Analysis, IT delivery, or a related role within a software development, systems, or IT environment.
• Experience partnering with business stakeholders, technical teams, vendors, and Project Managers to define scope, clarify requirements, prioritize work, document business workflows, and support delivery.
• Experience supporting enterprise applications, vendor-supported systems, integrations, internally developed solutions, or business-facing technology platforms.
• Experience in retail, grocery, supply chain, store operations, or another fast-paced, service-oriented environment strongly preferred; familiarity with systems such as Point of Sale (POS), merchandising/pricing, loyalty, or e-commerce platforms is a plus.
• Experience mentoring or coaching junior team members is a plus.
• Proficiency with Jira or similar Agile, Kanban, backlog, roadmap, or work management tools is preferred, as well as vision or other process documentation tools.

Education

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Business, or a related field, or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
• Certifications or similar Agile/Product credentials are preferred.

What's In It for You

• Opportunity to help shape products and practices within a growing IT PMO & Product Services team, influence technology priorities, and support the modernization of systems that serve our stores, associates, customers, and business partners every day.
• Health and retirement benefits including medical, dental, short-term and long-term disability, 401(k) with company match, FSA, and life insurance
• Hybrid work schedule and flexibility
• Weekly pay
• Paid time off provided , including sick days
• Employee Assistance Program for you and your family to assist in many of life ' s challenges, from short-term counseling, legal questions to financial guidance
• Associate-only savings, free products, bonus points, sweepstakes and more - being a part of our team has its perks with Dierbergs Rewards
• Wellness initiatives and volunteer opportunities to keep you healthy, engaged and involved
• Rewards, recognition and appreciation programs and events to spotlight you AND your exceptional talents
• Opportunity to Grow Every Day by building knowledge, supporting growth and creating connections - Let ' s GROW!

This description is representative only and is not all inclusive of the tasks that an associate in the position may be required to perform.