Product Owner

Agile Data Product Owner Location: Charlotte, NC (Hybrid) Duration: 12-Month Contract Pay: $60-70/hr W2 W2 ONLY, NO C2C About the Role Seeking an experienced Agile Data Product Owner to serve as the business authority for a defined data product area. The Product Owner will be responsible for backlog ownership, feature and story refinement, stakeholder management, dependency coordination, PI Planning participation, governance alignment, data quality prioritization, and delivery acceptance. The role will work closely with Product Managers, Data Analysts, Technology teams, Data Governance teams, Control partners, and business stakeholders to deliver enterprise data capabilities. This is an individual contributor position focused on product value delivery and backlog ownership. Key Responsibilities Serve as the business authority for a defined data product area, including helping define, document, and prioritize software requirements. Own and prioritize the product area backlog. Develop, evolve, and communicate product area vision, priorities, goals, and strategy. Partner with Product Managers on product strategy, roadmap alignment, and prioritization decisions. Define and refine features, user stories, business readiness stories, and acceptance criteria. Ensure all known work is transparent in the backlog, including delivery, discovery, data quality, governance, dependency, risk/control, and operational readiness work. Collaborate with delivery teams to refine features and stories into appropriately sized, testable, value-oriented backlog items. Validate completed work by accepting user stories after acceptance criteria and the Definition of Done have been met. Facilitate collaboration between customers, stakeholders, Product Management, delivery teams, Technology, Governance, and other Product Owners. Coordinate with other Product Owners to resolve sequencing, prioritization, scope, and dependency conflicts. Participate in Agile ceremonies including daily standups, backlog refinement, sprint planning, reviews/demos, retrospectives, PO syncs, dependency discussions, and PI Planning activities. Translate data product needs into actionable delivery work involving data sourcing, ingestion, conformance, semantic modeling, reporting, data quality, metadata, lineage, access, controls, and downstream consumer readiness. Partner with Data Governance, Data Management, Technology, Risk, Compliance, and business stakeholders to ensure delivery aligns with applicable policies, controls, and regulatory requirements. Use Agile workflow and collaboration tools such as Jira and Confluence to maintain backlog structure, traceability, prioritization, status, dependencies, and delivery readiness. Define and communicate data product success criteria, adoption metrics, data quality outcomes, and business value measurements. Support prioritization of technical debt, data quality remediation, platform modernization, and control enhancement work. Communicate delivery progress, risks, dependencies, and prioritization decisions to stakeholders. Monitor data product success metrics, adoption, value realization, and data quality outcomes. Required Qualifications 5+ years of digital product management, product ownership, Agile delivery, data product management, business analysis, data management, or equivalent experience demonstrated through one or a combination of work experience, training, military experience, or education. Desired Qualifications Experience serving as a Product Owner, Agile Product Owner, Business Product Owner, Data Product Owner, Business Analyst, Data Product Lead, or similar role. Experience with data management, data governance, data quality, metadata, lineage, data integration, remediation, reporting, analytics, or enterprise data platforms. Experience with Agile methodologies and frameworks such as Scrum, Kanban, or scaled Agile. Experience with Jira and Confluence. Ability to translate product vision, business outcomes, policy requirements, stakeholder needs, and data product requirements into clear features, stories, acceptance criteria, and backlog priorities. Strong stakeholder management and communication skills. Experience managing risks and dependencies across products, teams, systems, and stakeholder groups. Ability to influence and lead organizational change in a matrixed environment. Experience supporting backlog refinement, sprint/iteration planning, acceptance criteria clarification, demos/reviews, and product feedback loops. Ability to evaluate trade-offs and guide stakeholders and teams toward solutions based on value, risk, feasibility, dependencies, and delivery readiness. Experience with enterprise data warehouses, cloud-based data platforms, reporting and analytics solutions, or data governance programs. Experience working in highly regulated environments requiring adherence to risk, compliance, audit, and policy requirements. Education & Certifications Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Technology, Computer Science, Data Management, Analytics, Engineering, or a related field preferred. Equivalent work experience may be considered. Agile certifications such as CSPO, PSPO, SAFe POPM, SAFe Agilist, or PMI-ACP are preferred. Leading Utilities Organization