Lead Product Owner | Chicago, IL

We are seeking an experienced Lead Product Owner with 10+ years of experience in product ownership, business analysis, software product management, and stakeholder engagement.

The ideal candidate will work closely with product development engineers, customers, field support teams, and technical stakeholders to define product requirements, manage software changes, resolve product issues, and drive successful product delivery.

Key Responsibilities

• Partner with product development engineers to track and communicate design, development, support, maintenance, and product issues.

• Identify, document, prioritize, and report reliability, maintenance, design issues, and software defects.

• Gather and consolidate feedback from customers, field teams, and internal stakeholders.

• Coordinate with field support specialists and customers to resolve product issues and expand product adoption.

• Provide guidance on product integration, infrastructure, and software-related issues.

• Define and maintain product requirements, business cases, acceptance criteria, and product documentation.

• Manage software change requests, including scope, impact, cost, risk, resources, and status.

• Collaborate with development, QA/testing, business, and other cross-functional teams.

• Support and participate in UAT, acceptance testing, test strategy, and acceptance criteria definition.

• Analyze business needs and recommend solutions that deliver measurable stakeholder value.

• Make informed decisions by evaluating alternatives, risks, assumptions, and potential business impact.

• Communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders at all organizational levels.

• Maintain product vision, requirements, customer feedback, current product usage, and future product plans.

• Support product enhancements, integrations, installations, customizations, and issue resolution.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience as a Lead Product Owner / Product Owner.

• Strong Business Analysis experience, including requirements gathering, stakeholder analysis, process analysis, and solution evaluation.

• Strong Decision-Making and Critical Thinking skills.

• Excellent written and verbal communication and facilitation skills.

• Extensive experience with software change request management.

• Working knowledge of software engineering, product development, integrations, and software delivery methodologies.

• Experience with software problem/incident management and issue resolution.

• Strong Software Product Business Knowledge, including product requirements, product vision, customer usage, enhancements, and future roadmap.

• Extensive experience with User Acceptance Testing (UAT), acceptance criteria, test strategies, and test planning.

• Ability to work effectively with Product Development, Engineering, QA, Business, Customers, and Field Support teams.

• Bachelor's degree is preferred but not required.

Preferred Experience

• Experience managing complex software products and enterprise applications.

• Experience working with multiple platforms, systems, and integrations.

• Experience gathering and translating customer/field feedback into product requirements.

• Experience managing product defects, enhancements, change requests, and release priorities.

• Strong stakeholder management and conflict-resolution skills.

• Experience working in large enterprise environments.