Application Platform Owner

Job#: 3024112

Job Description:

Job Description

JOB TITLE: Application Platform Owner - Retail Products

FLSA STATUS: Exempt

DEPARTMENT: Information Technology

REPORTS TO Product Applications Manager

LOCATION: Seattle, WA

JOB SUMMARY

The Application Platform Owner serves as the accountable owner for how platforms operate, are configured, and evolve to support product outcomes. This role is responsible for governing platform behavior, configuration standards, and decision-making within defined guardrails.

The Application Platform Owner partners closely with Product Owners, ensuring that platform capabilities can safely, consistently, and efficiently support product strategy. While the Product Owner defines what outcomes are needed, the Application Platform Owner owns how the platform is configured to deliver them, balancing speed, reuse, risk, and long-term platform health.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Product & Roadmap Strategy Alignment - Partners strategically with Product Managers and product teams to shape roadmap initiatives, ensuring solution readiness, technical feasibility, and alignment between business objectives and system capabilities. Translates strategic goals into well-defined, outcome-driven requirements and user stories that enable efficient delivery.

Platform Configuration Ownership - Owns the configuration model for assigned platforms, including rules, parameters, workflows, and guardrails. Acts as the authority on platform behavior and ensures consistency across use cases.

Decision Rights & Governance - Serves as the decision-maker for platform configuration changes and exceptions within defined boundaries. Establishes and enforces standards to prevent one-off solutions and platform drift.

Product Enablement Partnership - Partners with Product Owners to translate desired outcomes into viable platform configurations. Provides recommendations and tradeoffs rather than raw analysis.

Platform Evolution & Reuse - Guides how the platform evolves over time by identifying reusable patterns, reducing complexity, and shaping sustainable solutions. Conducts annual platform maturity assessments.

Requirements Shaping & Oversight - Ensures requirements align with platform standards and are configurable, reusable, and supportable. Demonstrates strong user story writing capabilities to clearly articulate intent, outcomes, and acceptance criteria when needed, while ensuring stories enable efficient delivery and accurate platform configuration. May delegate detailed documentation but retains accountability for platform fit.

Release Readiness for Configuration Changes - Owns readiness for configuration-driven releases, including validation, coordination, and post-release monitoring expectations.

Process Design & Improvement - Designs and governs scalable processes for intake, configuration changes, and exception handling.

Stakeholder Leadership - Acts as the primary platform contact for stakeholders, Risk, Compliance, and Operations, managing tradeoffs and resolving conflicts related to platform behavior.

Problem Resolution - Leads systems-level problem solving across configuration, workflow, data, and operational impacts to prevent recurring issues.

Vendor Partnership & Relationship Management - Serves as the primary liaison to vendors, cultivating strong, collaborative relationships to support platform stability and evolution. Partners with vendors on configuration changes, enhancements, and issue resolution, ensuring vendor solutions align with product needs, platform standards, and long-term sustainability. Holds vendors accountable for outcomes while fostering productive relationships.

JOB EVALUATION FACTORS

Education/Skills/Business Acumen:

Scope of Responsibility - Operates with a high degree of autonomy and accountability over platform behavior. Owns cross-initiative platform decisions and influences product strategy through feasibility, sequencing, and risk-based recommendations.

Leadership - Provides formal platform leadership, setting standards and guardrails. Mentors Senior BSAs and elevates analysis and configuration practices across teams.

Complexity - Manages platform-wide complexity across multiple products, channels, and regulatory considerations.

Decision-Making - Makes binding decisions on platform configuration and exceptions. Escalates only those decisions that exceed defined guardrails or carry enterprise-wide impact.

Education and Experience

Required:

o Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field.

o Minimum 5+ years of business systems analysis, platform ownership, or related experience.

o Demonstrated experience owning system configurations and platform-level decision-making.

o Proven ability to operate beyond project boundaries and influence cross-functional outcomes.

Preferred:

o JavaScript and HTML experience strongly desired.

o Product Ownership Analysis (IIBA-CPOA), CBAP, or equivalent certifications.

o Experience supporting regulated financial services platforms.

Soft Skills

Ambiguity and Adaptability: Thrives in environments with incomplete information, using critical thinking and resourcefulness to make informed decisions and drive progress. Adapts quickly to changing priorities nad emerging challenges, remaining solution-oriented and proactive in delivering value.

Curiosity: Natural curiosity to understand business processes, systems, and challenges. Continuously seeks to ask "why" and "what if" questions to uncover underlying issues and opportunities.

Systems Thinking: Ability to see how parts of a system fit together and how changes in one area affect others.

Communication: Strong written and verbal communication skills to convey technical information to non-technical stakeholders.

Challenge the status quo: Confidence in managing laterally and up. Suggest and implement improvements in application configurations and support processes to improve system stability and efficiency. Question legacy workflows and propose innovative solutions to improve product-aligned processes and enable roadmap scalability. Ability to spearhead change and challenge the status quo.

Analytical skills to critically evaluate the information gathered from multiple sources, reconcile conflicts, and decompose high-level information into detail.

Listening skills, understand what people say, probe when appropriate and help them articulate their true needs.

Interpersonal skills: Build and maintain effective relationships across various business units and with external vendors.

Technical Skills

System Analysis and Design: Understanding system architecture, workflows, system integrations, databases, and APIs.

Data Analysis Tools: Familiarity with SQL, data visualization tools, and reporting software to represent requirements/processes in graphical forms (flow charts, swim lanes, PowerPoint presentations, etc.).

IT Infrastructure: Knowledge of networking, servers, and cloud computing environments to understand technical dependencies.

Project Management Tools: Experience with Agile and traditional project management tools (e.g., JIRA, Confluence, MS Project).

Modeling Techniques: Knowledge of process modeling and data flow diagrams (e.g., BPMN, UML).

Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC): Understanding of SDLC phases, with experience in requirements definition, design, development, testing, and implementation.

Business Acumen

General knowledge of bank systems, including operating and network systems, with a strong desire to learn more about these systems and other technologies.

Strategic Thinking: Ability to align system solutions with broader business objectives and product roadmaps.

Process Optimization: Experience identifying and implementing process improvements that drive business value.

Customer-Centric Mindset: Anticipate and understand end-user needs, enhancing overall user experience with delivered solutions.

Physical Conditions:

Light intermittent physical effort.

Sit or stand for long periods.

Frequently transition from seated to upright positions.

Make repetitive hand and wrist movements.

Use vision for close, distance, peripheral, and depth perception when using a computer monitor.

Communicate clearly verbally, over the phone, and via video chat.

Working Conditions:

Typical office conditions.

Adept at using a smartphone to monitor activities while outside the office.

Travel may be required

Apex Systems is a world-class IT services company that serves thousands of clients across the globe. When you join Apex, you become part of a team that values innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning. We offer quality career resources, training, certifications, development opportunities, and a comprehensive benefits package. Our commitment to excellence is reflected in many awards, including ClearlyRated's Best of Staffing in Talent Satisfaction in the United States and Great Place to Work in the United Kingdom and Mexico. Apex uses a virtual recruiter as part of the application process. Click for more details.

Apex Benefits Overview: Apex offers a range of supplemental benefits, including medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and other insurance plans that offer an optional layer of financial protection. We offer an ESPP (employee stock purchase program) and a 401K program which allows you to contribute typically within 30 days of starting, with a company match after 12 months of tenure. Apex also offers a HSA (Health Savings Account on the HDHP plan), a SupportLinc Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with up to 8 free counseling sessions, a corporate discount savings program and other discounts. In terms of professional development, Apex hosts an on-demand training program, provides access to certification prep and a library of technical and leadership courses/books/seminars once you have 6+ months of tenure, and certification discounts and other perks to associations that include CompTIA and IIBA. Apex has a dedicated customer service team for our Consultants that can address questions around benefits and other resources, as well as a certified Career Coach. You can access a full list of our benefits, programs, support teams and resources within our 'Welcome Packet' as well, which an Apex team member can provide.