Sr. Product Owner

Description

The Senior Product Owner is the connective tissue between product vision and engineering execution. In this role, you are the day-to-day driver of delivery, translating the Product Manager's vision into clearly defined, actionable work and holding the line on what gets built, when, and why. You do not wait for direction to materialize; you create clarity where it is absent, resolve ambiguity before it becomes a blocker, and push the people and processes around you to keep commitments on track.

Working directly alongside the Product Manager and Technical Owner, the Senior PO operates at the intersection of strategy and execution within Program Increment (PI) timelines. The Product Manager sets the direction and you help make it real. You translate initiative-level goals into a prioritized backlog, partner with the Technical Owner to sequence work in a way that is technically sound and deliverable and drive the team to hit release targets without sacrificing quality. When priorities shift or roadblocks emerge, you are the first to identify the problem and the one accountable for resolving it.

This is a high-ownership, cross-functional role. You will regularly work across engineering, design, architecture, QA, security, and business stakeholders. At times, you will be stepping into territory that is undefined or underdeveloped. You are expected to bring structure to ambiguity, advocate for the right outcomes even when it is uncomfortable, and communicate with clarity up, down, and sideways. Whether you are writing user stories, escalating a critical bug, untangling a cross-team dependency, or presenting status to a senior stakeholder, you are the person others look to when things need to move.

What You'll Do:

• Build trusted working relationships across product, engineering, design, architecture, and business functions to deliver end to end solutions
• Drive delivery against PI commitments by tracking progress, surfacing risks early, and escalating when timelines are at risk
• Own the release plan for your initiatives; coordinate with the Technical Owner and engineering team to keep delivery on schedule
• Identify and resolve cross-functional blockers (technical, organizational, or process-related) before they stall progress
• Influence stakeholders, partners, and team members to maintain pace and hold commitments
• Facilitate sprint ceremonies including backlog refinement, sprint planning, standups, demos, and retrospectives
• Own a prioritized, well-groomed backlog that reflects both business value and technical sequencing
• Write clear, actionable user stories with acceptance criteria that meet the Definition of Ready before entering a sprint
• Break down complex initiatives and epics into deliverable increments that the engineering team can execute within a sprint
• Continuously refine and re-prioritize the backlog based on changing business needs, customer feedback, and technical realities
• Ensure all work in the backlog is traceable to a business outcome or strategic objective
• Triage incoming bugs and defects; assess business impact and prioritize accordingly against active development work
• Escalate critical or high-impact bugs through the right channels with the urgency and context needed to drive fast resolution
• Partner with QA, engineering, and the Technical Owner to ensure defects are addressed within appropriate timelines
• Track open defects and their resolution status; communicate impact and timeline to affected stakeholders
• Serve as the primary point of contact for stakeholders seeking updates on project status, scope, and delivery timelines
• Communicate changes, risks, and decisions with clarity; translating technical context into language stakeholders can act on
• Set and manage expectations proactively; do not wait for stakeholders to ask what is happening
• Present sprint outcomes, release readiness, and PI progress in reviews and demos
• Contribute to PI retrospectives with concrete data on what improved, what slipped, and what will change next increment
• Navigate unfamiliar territory with confidence by stepping into new product areas, technical domains, or organizational dynamics and establish clarity quickly
• This position does not have direct supervisory responsibilities. However, there are opportunities and expectations that Senior team members will mentor team members and act as a point of contact for questions and guidance.
• Other duties related to the role

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience as a Product Owner, Product Manager, or equivalent in a SaaS, B2B, or technology-driven company
• Demonstrated experience delivering software against PI or release timelines across cross-functional teams
• Track record of building software from planning thr