Services Portfolio Owner

About this role

General Summary:

The Services Portfolio Owner will have a technical focus and work with product managers, internal stakeholders, 3rd-party partners, and customers to gain a thorough understanding of their product and market needs, translating them into feature stories and tasks for development. You will be responsible for turning the product vision into an actionable backlog and advocating the customers’ needs to the development team.

The Services Portfolio Owner is responsible for the development backlog, grooming, and acceptance. This individual will execute converting the product vision and roadmap into workable product requirements for engineering to meet product roadmap expectations defined by the Portfolio Manager. This role will report to the Manager, Services Portfolio and will regularly engage with cross-functional leaders.

The ideal candidate must be well-versed in agile scrum and comfortable working in all aspects of a multifaceted delivery network. You will demonstrate excellent problem-solving skills, be self-motivated and detail-oriented, and be a good team player. Other duties include prioritization of key backlog items that drive growth and success, developing supporting documentation, and keeping customers and stakeholders informed of the status of the product.

ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES

• Owns and prioritizes the sprint backlog for assigned platform and technical domains, balancing technical debt, reliability, and roadmap commitments

• Translates platform and technical requirements into well-defined epics, user stories, technical specifications, and acceptance criteria

• Converts product vision into actionable backlog items that deliver platform enablement, reliability, scalability and technical debt reduction

• Participates in sprint planning, grooming, retrospectives and reviews for assigned technical and platform teams

• Works with Portfolio Management, Engineering leads, architects and security teams to support platform decisions that are technically sound and aligned with product direction

• Communicates platform capability needs to the development team and represents technical requirements in prioritization decisions

• Supports and utilizes technical discovery with Engineering leads and internal platform consumers to inform backlog priorities

• Communicates platform capability releases to internal consumers and Engineering teams in coordination with Product and Technology leadership

• Serves as a subject matter expert for assigned platform and technical domains, supporting Engineering onboarding tooling, and organizational education

• Escalates technical risks, platform dependencies and roadmap gaps to Portfolio leadership proactively

• Maintains regular alignment with the Portfolio Manager and Portfolio Leadership on roadmap priorities, backlog direction, and technical outcomes; raises conflicts between technical demands and roadmap commitments proactively

• Maintains a minimum of two sprints of groomed and estimated backlog at all times for assigned teams.

• Contributes to epic-level roadmap tracking across quarters in coordination with the Portfolio Manager and/or Manager, Service Solutions for assigned domains

• Participates in pod-level planning, estimation sessions and steerco readouts as required

• Ability to travel up to 20%

KEY COMPETENCIES

• Balance of technical knowledge and business acumen

• Provides updates on backlog health, sprint progress and delivery risks to the Portfolio Manager and/or Manager, Services Portfolio to support roadmap tracking and stakeholder communication

• Customer first mind set

• Backlog execution – prioritizes and manages the sprint backlog in alignment with the product roadmap defined by the Portfolio Manager

• Proactive, self-starter with excellent project management skills and ability to manage multiple tasks effectively

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to engage, influence, and inspire partners and stakeholders to drive collaboration and alignment

• High degree of organization, individual initiative, and personal accountability

• Ability to assess risks, dependencies and propose mitigation strategies to overcome obstacles

• Skilled in leading meetings, setting agendas, driving decisions, and negotiating.

REQUIRED Qualifications, EDUCATION, CERTIFICATES and experience

• Bachelor’s degree and 4 years of professional experience, preferably in product ownership, project management or business analysis

• At least 1 year of experience in Product Management and/or Product Development

• Established background in launching software services in partnership with Engineering teams and high degree of proficiency in prototyping, iterative development and experience working within an Agile scrum team environment