Sr. Principal Product Owner

Job Description: Sr. Principal Product Owner

Contract Role - 12+ Months
Location: Remote (Hybrid - Quarterly onsite for PI Planning in Washington, DC or Wilmington, DE)

Overview

The Sr. Principal Product Owner plays a critical role within the Smooth Operators Team, part of the Connect Client value stream under the Enterprise Platforms & Enablement (EPE) organization. The Smooth Operators Team is responsible for supporting continuous IT operations, IT Asset Management/CMDB, network monitoring and segmentation, PCI compliance, and related operational capabilities.

This role will accelerate the organization s transition from a project-based model to a product-centric operating model, helping to establish and scale platform as a product. You will guide the delivery and continuous evolution of digital capabilities, serving as the voice of the customer and ensuring development teams deliver high-impact, high-value solutions.

Responsibilities

Product Ownership & Strategy

• Serve as the primary voice of the customer for the product and manage the product backlog to maximize business value.
• Develop and communicate a clear product vision and strategy aligned with enterprise goals and customer needs.
• Prioritize features, enhancements, and user stories using business value, customer insight, and technical feasibility.

Requirements & Delivery

• Translate business needs into actionable features, user stories, and acceptance criteria.
• Collaborate with product management, engineering, and stakeholders to refine requirements and ensure clarity for development teams.
• Drive continuous improvement through backlog refinement and iterative feedback incorporation.

Stakeholder & Cross-Team Alignment

• Partner with business stakeholders, customers, engineering teams, and leadership to ensure alignment to product vision and goals.
• Work with other Product Owners and the Product Manager to ensure cohesive feature delivery across related products and teams.

Agile & SAFe Delivery

• Champion and implement the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) principles and ceremonies.
• Support PI Planning, ensuring readiness of features, roadmaps, and dependencies.
• Contribute to a transparent product roadmap with milestones and delivery timelines.

Leadership & Communication

• Provide strong leadership, communication, facilitation, and decision-making to bridge business needs with technical delivery.
• Ensure the team maintains alignment with enterprise architecture, compliance (including PCI), and operational needs.

Required Qualifications

• SAFe 6.0 Product Owner/Product Manager certification, or 3+ years of product ownership experience in a Scaled Agile environment within a large organization.
• Minimum 5+ years of experience as an Agile Product Owner.
• Bachelor s degree or equivalent combination of relevant work experience and education.
• Strong understanding of Agile/Scrum practices and the SAFe framework.
• Experience using product and collaboration tools such as Jira Software, Confluence, Jira Align, FigJam, AgilityHealth, or similar.

Preferred Skills

• Proven ability to balance business needs, technical constraints, and operational priorities.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Experience managing digital product backlogs for enterprise platforms, infrastructure operations, or IT service management.
• Familiarity with IT operations, CMDB/ITAM, network monitoring, segmentation, and compliance frameworks (e.g., PCI).