Principal Product Owner, IT

IntroAre you ready to explore a world of possibilities, both at work and during your time off? Join our American Airlines family, and you’ll travel the world, grow your expertise and become the best version of you. As you embark on a new journey, you’ll tackle challenges with flexibility and grace, learning new skills and advancing your career while having the time of your life. Feel free to enrich both your personal and work life and hop on board!Why you'll love this jobAs one diverse, high-performing team dedicated to technical excellence, you will focus relentlessly on delivering unrivaled digital products that drive a more reliable and profitable airline.As a Principal Technical Product Owner, you will lead the strategy, vision, and execution of complex, enterprise-scale technical products and platforms. You will serve as a critical bridge between engineering teams, architecture, and business stakeholders, ensuring that product development aligns with technical standards, customer needs, and strategic business goals. Your role will focus on delivering scalable, sustainable, and value-driven solutions that support enterprise-wide initiatives.You will own the end-to-end product lifecycle—from defining technical requirements and prioritizing platform capabilities to collaborating cross-functionally to deliver impactful outcomes. As a senior leader, you will provide thought leadership across product and engineering teams, mentor other Product Owners, and help shape the future of our technical product ecosystem.What you'll doAs noted above, this list is intended to reflect the current job but there may be additional essential functions (and certainly non-essential job functions) that are not referenced. Management will modify the job or require other tasks be performed whenever it is deemed appropriate to do so, observing, of course, any legal obligations including any collective bargaining obligations.Define and communicate a compelling technical product vision. Develop and manage roadmaps for platforms and systems, ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture, business objectives, and long-term sustainabilityOperate as the primary liaison between engineering, architecture, and business stakeholders to translate business needs into technical requirements and ensure alignment across teamsLead backlog refinement and prioritization for technical features, platform enhancements, and infrastructure capabilities. Balance technical debt, scalability, and business valueGather insights from internal users and stakeholders to identify pain points and opportunities to translate feedback into actionable technical solutionsPartner with engineering, architecture, and design teams to ensure successful delivery of technical products and facilitate decision-making and remove roadblocksDefine and track technical KPIs and OKRs that measure platform performance, reliability, and business impact. Use data to inform decisions and drive continuous improvementMentor Product Owners and team members, fostering growth in technical product management practices and agile methodologiesStay ahead of industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices. Drive innovation in platform capabilities and technical product offeringsEnsure technical products align with architectural standards, enterprise priorities, and long-term strategic goals. Make trade-offs that optimize for scalability and sustainabilityAll you'll need for successMinimum Qualifications- Education & Prior Job ExperienceBachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical field (or equivalent experience).5+ years of experience in product ownership or technical product management, with a strong track record of delivering complex technical solutions.Proven experience working in Agile environments and collaborating with engineering and architecture teams.Deep understanding of platform development, APIs, cloud infrastructure, and enterprise systems.Preferred Qualifications- Education & Prior Job ExperienceMaster’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical field (or equivalent experience).9+ years of experience in product ownership or technical product management, with a strong track record of delivering complex technical solutions.Skills, Licenses & CertificationsEngineering & architecture fluency — Understands how enterprise systems are built and run; can read code, APIs, and architecture diagrams; frames trade‑offs across cloud, networking, data, reliability/observability, and security to inform product decisions; influences technical direction without owning day‑to‑day coding.Define and champion the strategic vision for GND products and services, ensuring Infrastructure, Core Services, Wireless Communications, Telecom, Network Automation, and Operational Visibility capabilities align with airline priorities, technology ​strategy, ​and long-term business objectives. Partner with Engineering Managers, Architects, Product Owners, and Scrum Leads to ensure successful execution of product strategies and continuous ​delivery of customer-focused outcomes.Define and govern product success metrics, including service reliability, customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, adoption, ​delivery performance, and business value realization. Lead the identification and adoption of emerging technologies, AI-enabled capabilities, and automation opportunities that improve network ​resiliency, operational intelligence, and delivery efficiency. Foster strong partnerships with internal customers, business leaders, vendors, and technology partners to ensure product direction reflects evolving ​business needs and industry best practices.Platform/shared‑service productization — Treats internal platforms and shared services as products with clear value propositions, service catalogs, and life‑cycle plans; defines and stewards SLOs/SLAs, capacity and reliability objectives, and cross‑domain integrations to maximize reuse and reduce total cost of ownership.Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills across technical and non-technical audiences.Strong leadership and mentoring capabilities.Strategic thinker with the ability to balance short-term delivery with long-term technical vision and ability balance business need with and technical constraints to make informed decisions.Experience defining and tracking technical OKRs and KPIs.Analytical mindset with a focus on data-driven decision-making.What you'll getFeel free to take advantage of all that American Airlines has to offer: Travel Perks: Ready to explore the world? You, your family and your friends can reach 365 destinations on more than 6,800 daily flights across our global network.Health Benefits: On day one, you’ll have access to your health, dental, prescription and vision benefits to help you stay well. And that’s just the start, we also offer virtual doctor visits, flexible spending accounts and more. Wellness Programs: We want you to be the best version of yourself – that’s why our wellness programs provide you with all the right tools, resources and support you need.401(k) Program: Available upon hire and, depending on the workgroup, employer contributions to your 401(k) program are available after one year.Additional Benefits: Other great benefits include our Employee Assistance Program, pet insurance and discounts on hotels, cars, cruises and moreFeel free to be yourself at AmericanFrom the team members we hire to the customers we serve, inclusion and diversity are the foundation of the dynamic workforce at American Airlines. Our 20+ Employee Business Resource Groups are focused on connecting our team members to our customers, suppliers, communities and shareholders, helping team members reach their full potential and creating an inclusive work environment to meet and exceed the needs of our diverse world. Are you ready to feel a tremendous sense of pride and satisfaction as you do your part to keep the largest airline in the world running smoothly as we care for people on life’s journey? Feel free to be yourself at American.