Job Summary
We are seeking a Lead Product Owner to provide day-to-day support to customers and field service teams related to product implementation, customization, product questions, and problem resolution. The Product Owner will work closely with product development engineers, field support specialists, and customers to identify and resolve product issues, coordinate solutions, gather customer feedback, and support product integration and infrastructure needs. This is a new headcount supporting the product team.
Key Responsibilities
• Coordinate with product development engineers to track and communicate design, development, support, and maintenance issues and solutions.
• Identify, document, and report design, reliability, maintenance issues, and software bugs.
• Gather and consolidate feedback from customers and field staff.
• Coordinate with field support specialists and customers to resolve product issues and expand product usage.
• Answer customer and field support questions related to product integration and infrastructure.
• Support product implementation and customization activities.
• Manage and communicate software change requests from customers, vendors, and internal teams.
• Track and support resolution of software problems, including documentation, escalation, and customer communication.
• Collect, document, and maintain product functional requirements and provide recommendations.
• Support major product installations and customizations.
• Participate in User Acceptance Testing (UAT) activities, including acceptance criteria, test strategies, plans, and approaches.
• Work collaboratively with stakeholders, development teams, testing teams, customers, and field support teams.
• Analyze business value and functions and establish appropriate business analysis approaches.
• Collaborate with stakeholders, development, and testing teams to document business cases, requirements, timelines, and resources.
• Evaluate assumptions, alternatives, historical decisions, and potential impacts to support effective decision-making.
• Analyze and synthesize relevant information and advise stakeholders on alternatives and recommendations.
• Communicate effectively across technical and business audiences and adapt presentations and documentation to the intended audience.
• Influence and persuade stakeholders when necessary while maintaining clear and focused communication.
• Estimate costs and resources associated with software change requests.
• Define responses to non-standard or unsupported change requests.
• Develop change-request processes and templates.
• Evaluate affected components, risks, resources, status, and costs associated with software changes.
• Manage the overall software change-request process and research tools and techniques for monitoring product effectiveness.
• Understand product integration across multiple platforms and systems.
• Work with software packages and components and understand software development methodologies, activities, and deliverables.
• Develop and maintain structured feature, function, planning, and scheduling documentation.
• Understand software design practices and technologies.
• Track and resolve software and product issues.
• Document resolution progress and communicate updates to customers.
• Work with issues involving other products or vendors.
• Follow established problem-reporting, resolution, notification, and escalation procedures.
• Manage product requirements, current usage, future plans, and product vision.
• Collect and maintain functional requirements.
• Support product installations and customizations.
• Maintain information regarding customer usage and experience.
• Understand advanced product business features and functions.
• Identify opportunities, challenges, and non-traditional product uses.
• Develop and evaluate user acceptance approaches.
• Review UAT plans for completeness and appropriateness.
• Define acceptance testing approaches and criteria.
• Work with end users to establish testing environments and acceptance criteria.
• Support acceptance testing throughout the software development lifecycle.
• Consult on UAT strategies, processes, plans, and approaches.
Required Qualifications
• 10+ years of experience as a Lead Product Owner.
• Strong experience in business analysis, including identifying business needs and recommending solutions that deliver stakeholder value.
• Extensive decision-making and critical-thinking experience.
• Extensive communication and stakeholder-management skills.
• Extensive experience managing software change requests.
• Working knowledge of software engineering, software development methodologies, product integration, and software design practices.
• Working knowledge of software problem management, issue tracking, resolution, escalation, and customer communication.
• Extensive experience with software product business knowledge, including product requirements, product vision, customer usage, installations, and customizations.
• Extensive experience with User Acceptance Testing (UAT), including acceptance criteria, test planning, test strategies, and end-user involvement.
• Ability to work collaboratively with customers, field service teams, engineering and development teams, testing teams, and internal stakeholders.
Preferred Qualifications
• Bachelor's degree is preferred but not required.
• Experience with product integration across multiple platforms and systems.
• Experience supporting major product installations and customizations.
• Experience working with customers and field service teams in a product-focused environment.
• Experience with structured business analysis methodologies and tools.
Ideal Candidate Profile
The ideal candidate is a senior/lead-level Product Owner with 10+ years of experience who combines strong product ownership, business analysis, software product knowledge, stakeholder communication, software problem management, change-request management, and UAT experience. The candidate should be comfortable working directly with customers, field service teams, engineering and development teams, testing teams, and internal stakeholders to identify problems, prioritize solutions, and support successful product implementation and adoption.
