Senior Product Owner at Horizontal Digital

At Horizontal Digital, we hold ourselves to one key belief: You’re only as good as your worst customer experience. This mantra is what drives our digital consultancy to think beyond the easy answers and instead create websites, apps, portals and other experiences that solve customer needs for Fortune 500 companies in intuitive and empathetic ways. And we make this lofty standard a reality by fusing strategy, data, design and technology together to arrive at solutions that set the bar higher for everyone. 

We use these values to fuel superior results: 

Lock arms 
We forge relationships that make our impact 1,000x stronger. This means working across departments and engaging both our clients and our communities to deliver the greatest good. 

Show hustle 
We’re not ones to sit on our hands and wait. Instead, we anticipate opportunities, collectively roll up our sleeves and find ways to execute the exceptional. 

Embrace change 
From new technologies to workplace philosophies, we welcome the unexpected and constantly anticipate what’s next. 

Elevate empathy 
We listen before we take action. This means understanding a variety of perspectives and holding ourselves to a higher standard of accountability. 

Never settle 
We motivate each other to push past the easy answers and collectively arrive at bigger, more inspiring ideas. 

But enough about us. Let’s talk about you. 

 As a Senior Product Owner, you will play a pivotal role in driving product success by translating business needs into actionable product requirements. You will collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to ensure that our product aligns with market demands, meets customer expectations, and delivers measurable business value. 

What You'll Do: 

• Strategic Alignment: Manage and optimize the product backlog, ensuring continuous alignment to product vision, roadmap and priorities that maximize the product and business value.  

• Requirement Elicitation: Conduct in-depth interviews, workshops, and analysis to gather, understand and translate business and user needs within the context of scaled agile frameworks. 

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with cross-functional teams (strategy, design, development, and testing) to ensure a shared understanding in value and priority of each requirement.  

• Backlog Prioritization: Collaborate with stakeholders to prioritize and refine the product backlog based on value, dependencies, and risks. Proactively identifying opportunities, adjusting the backlog as needed to ensure continued success. 

• Backlog Refinement: Facilitate backlog refinement, breaking down features into smaller, more manageable user stories and clear acceptance criteria.  

• Stakeholder Management: Build and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders to ensure buy-in and support. 

• Decision Making: Leverage business needs, analytics, and stakeholders feedback to support informed decisions. 

• Continuous Delivery: Support the implementation of continuous delivery practices to enable faster time-to-market and improve product quality. 

• Continuous Improvement: Identify and implement opportunities for process improvement and innovation within the context of scaled Agile. 

Who You Are: 

• Strategic Thinker: You can execute product strategies that align with business goals and scaled agile frameworks. 

• Analytical: You can analyze and interpret complex business needs, leveraging insights from various inputs. 

• Problem Solver: You can identify and solve complex problems creatively. 

• Excellent Communicator: You can effectively communicate with stakeholders at all levels. 

• Proactive. You are a self-starter that takes initiative, anticipates needs and drives responsibilities to completion.  

• Collaborative: Can work effectively with cross-functional teams and across multiple levels of the organization. 

• Agile: Can adapt to changing requirements and work in a fast-paced environment. 

• Accountable: You hold yourself and the team accountable for delivering high-quality and valuable outcomes. 

• Professional: You lead with integrity and empathy, communicating clearly and effectively while building trust across cross functional teams and client stakeholders. 

• Results-Oriented: You are driven to achieve measurable outcomes. 

• Team Oriented: You emphasize the importance of fostering a leadership culture within the team, where every member feels empowered to contribute to the product's success. 

• Customer Centric: You drive a customer-centric approach, ensuring that development is focused on delivering value, and representing the customer's voice within the team, ensuring their needs are met. 

• Curious learner: You are an enthusiastic learner, that has a proactive appetite to learn new business processes, underlying technology systems, and related terminology. 

What you bring: 

• 7+ years of experience working on enterprise digital initiatives, software development, or related IT projects as Product Owner, or in a similar role.  

• CMS experience (such as Sitecore, Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), or others) required. 

• Salesforce experience is preferred.  

• Strong understanding and familiarity with enterprise digital platforms such as CRM, ERP, PIM systems.  

• Strong understanding and familiarity with data interchange across the digital experience through engagement customer journey, enabled by API Management platforms.  

• Strong understanding and familiarity with business process definition, and functional areas such as Commerce, Marketing Automation, Content Strategy, Personalization, Customer Service critical to the success of client initiatives.  

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent experience required. 

• Demonstrated experience working as a Product Owner, specifically backlog management, writing user stories, leading backlog refinement, iterative development, frequent delivery, and continuous feedback. 

• Experience working in scaled agile environments and a strong understanding of the principles and practices of frameworks like SAFe, as an example active participation in PI planning events and ART sync meetings. 

• Experience with Agile frameworks such as Scrum or Kanban.  

• Relevant Product Ownership and Agile certifications such as SAFe PMPO/CSPO (preferred). 

• Experience with Jira/Confluence toolset (preferred).  

• UAT and testing experience (preferred).  

Keywords: Product Management, Product Strategy, Backlog Management, Product Roadmap, Feature Prioritization, Stakeholder Management, User Stories, Acceptance Criteria, CMS, Content Management System, Sitecore, AEM, Adobe Experience Manager, Agile, Scrum

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.   

Horizontal Digital is an experience-forward consultancy that builds exceptional website, mobile, ecommerce and portal experiences that meet customers with the right message, at the right moment. We deliver on this promise by fusing every digital touchpoint with customer data from sales, service, ecommerce and marketing programs we design and implement. Our unwavering focus on delivering meaningful digital experiences at every touchpoint has allowed us to successfully solve complex challenges for some of the world's most recognizable brands.