Data Product Owner

Job Title: Data Product Owner

Location: Resource based out of Oakland, CA, Rancho Cordova, CA or Alpharetta, GA.

Main Skills: Data Management, product Managemnet.

Position Overview:
We are seeking an experienced Data Product Owner to lead the planning, prioritization, and management of data-related products and initiatives. This role involves working closely with both business stakeholders and technology teams to define product vision, align initiatives with business objectives, and ensure successful delivery of data solutions that drive value and innovation. The ideal candidate will possess deep expertise in data management, strong stakeholder engagement skills, and proficiency in Agile methodologies, particularly Jira.

Key Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with business and technology stakeholders to define and communicate the vision for data products, ensuring alignment with strategic business goals and customer needs.
• Support product and data roadmaps that enable business outcomes through technology and innovation.
• Prioritize features, initiatives, and stories for technology/data teams to execute on business needs and product vision effectively.
• Gather requirements from multiple stakeholders, drive planning processes, and ensure timelines, requirements, and value objectives are clearly defined and met.
• Actively participate in Agile ceremonies, including standups, retrospectives, refinement sessions, and team demos.
• Create, maintain, and update user stories, acceptance criteria, and related documentation to guide development teams; flag dependencies and risks as needed.
• Monitor Jira boards daily to ensure stories have correct due dates, detailed descriptions, acceptance criteria, linked dependencies, and component tagging.
• Review inbound requests from business, collaborate with the Data & Analytics Center of Excellence (D&A CoE) to prioritize requests, and coordinate follow-up with stakeholders.
• Stay active in planning discussions for upcoming initiatives, assessing potential data impacts, and aligning resources accordingly.

Specific Tasks:

• Develop user stories for developers and enterprise data platform teams, communicating clearly to POs and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs).
• Identify and flag stories that require deletion, rework, or escalation.
• Ensure stories are detailed with acceptance criteria, descriptions, components, due dates, and properly linked for tracking.
• Track and communicate dependencies between teams, datasets, and reports to facilitate coordination.
• Follow up on UAT defects, report on progress, and ensure defects are addressed promptly.
• Maintain Jira as the single source of truth for all data product stories and backlog items, ensuring accuracy and completeness of reporting.
• Participate in backlog grooming and refinement sessions, proactively identifying gaps or overlaps in stories and requirements.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to ensure that Jira tickets provide the necessary detail for reporting, tracking, and future planning.

Qualifications:

• Proven experience in Data Product Ownership, Product Management, or Business Analysis within data-intensive environments.
• Strong knowledge of Agile methodologies, especially Jira management and processes.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to translate business needs into technical stories.
• Demonstrated ability to prioritize competing demands, plan effectively, and deliver results on time.
• Experience working with enterprise data platforms and understanding of data governance, data quality, and data modeling concepts is preferred.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience with healthcare, finance, or other regulated industries is a plus.
• Familiarity with Power BI, Snowflake, or other data platforms is advantageous.