The Opportunity We are seeking an AI-proficient Technical Product Owner to act as the critical bridge between product strategy and engineering delivery. This role focuses on backlog ownership, delivery excellence, and sprint execution-translating product vision from Product Managers into well-defined, actionable, and testable work for development teams. The ideal candidate will generate comprehensive functional specifications to drive spec-driven development using AI-powered SDLC practices, leveraging AI tools to accelerate user story creation, test case generation, and documentation while maintaining accountability for quality, acceptance criteria, and successful sprint outcomes.
Key Responsibilities: Delivery Excellence & Backlog Ownership
- Own and prioritize the team backlog, ensuring work is clearly defined, properly prioritized, and ready for execution
- Write clear user stories with well-defined acceptance criteria that translate product intent into actionable work
- Maintain a healthy, prioritized, and well-groomed backlog with 2-3 sprints of ready work at all times
- Lead backlog refinement sessions to break down features into deliverable increments
- Ensure work aligns to broader product priorities and strategic objectives set by Product Management
Sprint Execution & Team Collaboration
- Lead sprint planning sessions and establish clear sprint commitments with the development team
- Represent the product in daily standups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives
- Act as the day-to-day product representative for delivery teams, removing ambiguity and clarifying requirements
- Collaborate closely with Engineering and QA teams to ensure shared understanding of work and acceptance criteria
- Enable teams to deliver predictably each sprint by maintaining clarity and removing blockers
Quality & Acceptance Management
- Coordinate UAT (User Acceptance Testing) with stakeholders and customers
- Triage defects and coordinate with Support teams on production issues related to recent releases
- Ensure delivered work meets acceptance criteria and satisfies user needs before release
- Own quality at release time-accountable for ensuring features work as intended
- Provide acceptance sign-offs and validate UAT outcomes before production deployment
Documentation & Enablement
- Create wireframes, workflows, and functional specifications to guide development
- Develop internal enablement materials and walkthrough documentation for new features
- Generate user-facing documentation and release notes in collaboration with technical writers
- Support Sales and Customer Success teams with technical demonstrations and feature explanations
AI-Powered Efficiency & Acceleration
- Translate product vision into precise, testable specifications using AI assistance that eliminate ambiguity and enable parallel development workflows
- Leverage AI throughout the specification lifecycle-from requirements gathering and edge case identification to test scenario generation, user stories, and specification refinement
- Accelerate wireframe creation and user flow documentation using AI-assisted design tools
- Analyze support tickets for defect trends and backlog prioritization insights with AI assistance
- Generate first-pass documentation and release notes using AI, then refine for accuracy
- Summarize backlog health and sprint readiness metrics for leadership updates
Operational Partnership
- Partner with Product Managers to understand product strategy and translate it into executable work
- Collaborate with Engineering leadership on delivery tradeoffs, technical feasibility, and sequencing
- Communicate delivery status, risks, and blockers to stakeholders proactively
- Facilitate alignment across Engineering, QA, Support, and Product Management teams
Skills & Requirements
Requirements: Education & Experience
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Business, or related field
- 5+ years of experience as a Product Owner, Business Analyst, or similar role in software development
- Strong background working with Agile/Scrum development teams
- Experience with B2B SaaS or enterprise software strongly preferred; government sector experience a plus
Technical Skills & Competencies
- Proficiency with AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, or similar) for user story creation, test case generation, and documentation
- Comfortable with partnering with Dev teams that use AI for code generation, refactoring, test creation, and validation as part of the SDLC process.
- Expert-level experience with backlog management tools (Jira, Azure DevOps, or similar)
- Strong technical fluency to understand system architecture, APIs, databases, and integration patterns
- Experience writing clear, testable acceptance criteria and defining edge cases
- Ability to create wireframes, user flows, and functional specifications
- Understanding of software testing methodologies and QA processes
Qualifications
