Technical Product Owner

Role: Technical Product Owner (TPO)

Required Location- Birmingham, AL

Long term Contract

SUMMARY:

The Technical Product Owner (TPO) serves as a critical bridge between business stakeholders and software engineering teams. This role is responsible for translating business needs into clear, actionable technical requirements, ensuring alignment across teams, and driving the successful delivery of high-quality products on Cloud Platform (Google Cloud). The TPO combines strong business acumen with technical understanding to ensure that product outcomes meet strategic objectives and customer needs. The TPO gathers feature requests, schedules releases, and coordinates sprints. This role manages the development project from start to finish.

This role is pivotal in ensuring that business intent is accurately translated into scalable, high-quality technical solutions on Cloud. A strong Technical Product Owner reduces miscommunication, accelerates delivery, and ensures that engineering efforts directly contribute to business value. Technical Product Owner (TPO) will report to the Head of Cloud Services.

JOB DUTIES

1. Business–Technical Translation

• Act as the primary liaison between business stakeholders and engineering teams.
• Translate business requirements, user needs, and strategic objectives into detailed technical specifications and user stories.
• Ensure clarity, feasibility, and completeness of requirements before development begins.
• Facilitate discussions to resolve ambiguity and align expectations across teams.

2. Product Ownership & Backlog Management

• Own and manage the product backlog, ensuring it is prioritized, refined, and aligned with business goals.
• Write clear, concise user stories with well-defined acceptance criteria.
• Continuously groom the backlog to reflect evolving priorities and feedback.
• Balance short-term delivery needs with long-term product vision.

3. Agile Delivery Leadership

• Serve as the Product Owner within Agile/Scrum/Kanban frameworks.
• Lead sprint planning, PI meetings, agile release trains, backlog refinement, and participate actively in daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.
• Ensure development teams understand priorities and deliverables.
• Remove blockers and enable smooth execution.

4. Stakeholder Management

• Collaborate closely with business leaders, product managers, designers, and engineering teams.
• Communicate product vision, roadmap, and progress updates to stakeholders.
• Manage expectations and ensure alignment on deliverables, timelines, and scope.

5. Technical Understanding & Solution Alignment

• Work closely with engineering teams to understand system architecture, constraints, and dependencies.
• Validate that proposed solutions align with business needs and technical feasibility.
• Participate in solution design discussions and provide input on trade-offs.

6. Quality & Acceptance

• Define acceptance criteria and ensure deliverables meet business expectations.
• Participate in user acceptance testing (UAT) and validate completed features.
• Ensure defects and gaps are addressed prior to release.

7. Continuous Improvement & Innovation

• Gather feedback from users and stakeholders to inform product enhancements.
• Analyze product performance metrics and identify improvement opportunities.
• Advocate for process improvements and best practices across teams.

Key Success Metrics

• Delivery of features aligned with business objectives and timelines.
• Quality and clarity of requirements (minimal rework for the software engineering team).
• Stakeholder satisfaction and alignment.
• Sprint predictability and team velocity.
• Reduction in requirement-related defects or misinterpretations.

Core Competencies

1. Technical Acumen

• Strong understanding of software development lifecycle (SDLC).
• Strong understanding of cloud platforms
• Familiarity with APIs (Postman), system integrations, data flows, and architecture (especially on Microservices).
• Ability to engage in technical discussions and understand engineering constraints.

2. Business Acumen

• Ability to understand business processes, objectives, and customer needs.
• Translate strategy into actionable product requirements.

3. Communication & Translation Skills

• Exceptional ability to simplify complex technical concepts for business audiences.
• Strong documentation and storytelling skills.

4. Analytical Thinking

• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to analyze trade-offs and make informed decisions.
• Data-driven decision-making mindset.

5. Agile & Delivery Focus

• Hands-on experience with Agile tools
• Ability to manage competing priorities in fast-paced environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in technical engineering/product management roles
• Background in a technical role (developer, QA, systems analyst) is a plus.
• Experience working in the manufacturing sector preferred
• Strong communication skills.
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, Business, or related field.
• Certification such as Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) or SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager is preferred
• Experience with cloud platforms (Google Cloud Platform preferred)