Product Owner

Position Overview

Caterpillar is 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.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience as a Lead Product Owner.
• Bachelor's degree is not required, but is preferred.
• 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.

Core Competencies

Business Analysis

• Analyze business value and functions.
• Establish prerequisites for business analysis.
• Collaborate with stakeholders, development, and testing teams.
• Document business cases, requirements, timelines, and resources.
• Apply appropriate business analysis methodologies and tools.

Decision Making & Critical Thinking

• Evaluate assumptions, alternatives, and historical decisions.
• Assess potential impacts of decisions.
• Analyze and synthesize relevant information.
• Advise stakeholders on alternatives and recommendations.
• Apply consultative, consensus-based, or appropriate decision-making approaches.

Communication

• Communicate effectively across technical and business audiences.
• Adapt presentations and documentation to the intended audience.
• Communicate effectively with stakeholders at all levels.
• Influence and persuade stakeholders when necessary.
• Maintain clear, focused communication.

Software Change Request Management

• Estimate costs and resources associated with change requests.
• Define responses to non-standard or unsupported requests.
• Develop change-request processes and templates.
• Evaluate affected components, risks, resources, status, and costs.
• Manage the overall software change-request process.
• Research tools and techniques for monitoring product effectiveness.

Software Engineering

• Understand product integration across multiple platforms and systems.
• Work with software packages and components.
• Understand software development methodologies, activities, and deliverables.
• Develop and maintain structured feature, function, planning, and scheduling documentation.
• Understand software design practices and technologies.

Software Problem Management

• 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.

Software Product Business Knowledge

• 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.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

• 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.

Ideal Candidate

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.

Candidates should be comfortable working directly with customers, field service teams, engineering/development teams, and internal stakeholders to identify problems, prioritize solutions, and support successful product implementation and adoption.

Work Environment

• Hybrid work model.
• Currently 2 days per week in the Chicago office.
• Office requirement may increase in the future.
• Monday–Friday, 1st shift.
• 0–25% potential travel.

Interview Process

3 interview rounds via Microsoft Teams with video ON:

1. Technical interview – Coding
2. Technical interview – Architecture
3. Team interview – Behavioral

The final round could be conducted in the office.

Red Flags / Disqualifiers

• Consistent job hopping or choppy employment tenure.
• Candidates who are not local should clearly indicate on their resume that they are willing to relocate at their own expense and be onsite from Day 1.

I can also make this into a shorter recruiter posting version with only the Job Overview, Must-Have Skills, Responsibilities, Location, Rate, and Interview Process.