Technical Product Owner, Legal/HR

We believe in the power and joy of learning

At Cengage Group, our employees have a direct impact in helping students around the world discover the power and joy of learning. We are bonded by our shared purpose – driving innovation that helps millions of learners improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education.   

Our culture values inclusion, engagement, and discovery  

Our business is driven by our strong culture, and we know that creating an inclusive workplace is absolutely essential to the success of our company and our learners, as well as our individual well-being. We recognize the value of diverse perspectives in everything we do, and strive to ensure employees of all levels and backgrounds feel empowered to voice their ideas and bring their authentic selves to work. We achieve these priorities through programs, benefits, and initiatives that are integrated into the fabric of how we work every day. To learn more, please see https://www.cengagegroup.com/about/inclusion-and-belonging/.  

Join our team as a Technical Product Owner, Legal/HR

Make an impact by linking business needs with technical implementation supporting HR and Legal functions at Cengage! This strategic role enables you to establish product vision, coordinate product backlogs, and transform business requirements into detailed user stories and specifications for our development teams.   

Key Responsibilities

• Define product vision and develop a roadmap for human resources and legal systems, ensuring alignment with business goals.

• Incorporate Workday and legal technology future roadmaps and upcoming capabilities into product planning, proactively advising internal partners on optimization opportunities.

• Build, prioritize, and maintain the product backlog, ensuring features have clear acceptance criteria and align with architectural realities (domains, security, business processes, tenant configuration, platform limitations).

• Translate user needs into actionable requirements for development teams, accurately scoping work using deep knowledge of Workday and other system architecture.

• Partner with HR and Legal leaders during intake to provide strategic recommendations—focusing on long-term system development, scalability, and downstream impacts rather than simple order taking.

• Facilitate communication between Legal, HR, and Engineering teams to ensure clarity of requirements, constraints, and timelines.

• Evaluate how system configuration or business process changes impact upstream/downstream integrated systems and guide integration teams accordingly.

• Manage timelines, resources, and budgets while identifying and mitigating risks.

• Mentor development teams, evaluate new technologies, and ensure compliance with standards and policies.

• Coordinate end-to-end delivery and establish sustainable support processes.   

Essential Skills:

• Deep understanding of Workday domains, security groups, business process framework, calculated fields, EIBs/integrations, tenant configuration, and architectural limitations.

• Experience with security sanctions software, contract lifecycle management, and consent management tools.

• Ability to accurately scope configuration changes, estimate effort, and identify downstream impacts across modules and integrations.

• Knowledge of integration architecture, including how Workday changes affect connected systems (HR, payroll, legal, finance, and compliance platforms).

• Ability to translate business needs into technical requirements and guide partners toward scalable, future-proof Workday solutions.

• Up-to-date understanding of Workday’s roadmap, upcoming releases, and new features, with the ability to recommend adoption strategies to business partners.

• Solid understanding of SDLC and related concepts.

• Proficiency in agile product management methodologies.

• Ability to influence and cultivate positive relationships across stakeholder groups.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills to support sound decision-making.

• Familiarity with HR and legal operations and relevant regulatory requirements.

• Proven leadership skills showing capacity to guide and motivate teams.

• Familiarity with Salesforce and SAP ERP platforms is preferred.   

Cengage Group is committed to working with broad talent pools to attract and hire strong and most qualified indi