PRODUCT OWNER

Job Requisition ID: 51329 
Closing Date: 11/28/2025
​Agency: Teachers' Retirement System of the State of Illinois
Salary: $86,256 - $134,561
Job Type: Salaried
Category: Full Time 
County: Sangamon
Number of Vacancies: 1

 

Please follow the directions below when applying for this position.

**DO NOT CLICK THE APPLY BUTTON**

TO APPLY FOR THIS POSITION PLEASE VISIT THE TRS WEBSITE:

 Careers | Teachers' Retirement System of the State of Illinois

The Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois (TRS) is one of the largest public pension systems in the United States. We provide retirement, disability and survivor benefits to teachers, administrators and other public-school personnel employed outside the city of Chicago.

TRS serves over 456,000 members and manages a multi-billion-dollar investment portfolio for the exclusive benefit of the membership.

TRS is an agency of the State of Illinois governed by a Board of Trustees. Full-and part-time employees are eligible for the State of Illinois comprehensive benefits program which includes medical, dental and vision coverage. All employees hired after August 17, 2001 participate in the TRS retirement pension plan. Employees also have the option to contribute to additional State of Illinois deferred compensation plans. The TRS pension plan is a participating reciprocal system under the Illinois Pension Code Retirement Systems Reciprocal Act.

Learn more about careers at TRS: Careers | Teachers' Retirement System of the State of Illinois

Job Summary:

Under the direction of the IT Deputy Director – Quality and Compliance, 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 scrum, 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. 

 

Job Summary (Continued)

The incumbent must have working knowledge of Agile Principles and Scrum Methodology.  The Product Owner is expected to have skilled interaction with the scrum 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:

• Pr