The role of Product Owner (PO) is a position on the Strategic Education Inc. (SEI) Marketing team, and the PO oversees SEI’s prospect facing digital properties. The role is the intersection between business, technology, and user experience. The PO’s role is to own the product roadmap and backlog priorities. The PO works collaboratively with the team and stakeholders to clearly define goals and objectives for initiatives and sprints to ensure work alignment continually delivers business value.

The PO works closely with the lead product owner, product team and leadership to execute on the product vision to create an exceptional user experience.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:

Planning:

Define product vision and product roadmap with lead product owner.
Convey established product vision and “why” behind the roadmap, prioritization and approval of work. Share ongoing value realization to stakeholders and team members.
Assess value, develop business opportunities, write and prioritize epics, stories (with help of team) and themes on behalf of the users to ensure work delivers maximum value in alignment with product vision.

Define appropriate KPIs, OKRs, and metrics to measure success and make recommendations to develop new or improve existing online products and features.
Collaborate with strategic stakeholders to identify key deliverables to continuously enhance SEI’s digital experience.
Create and manage the product/team backlog through partnership with business stakeholders and agile teams.
Lead a cross-functional team of UX, designers, copy, developers and QA without any direct reports.
Participate in all agile ceremonies (daily stand-up, workshops, sprint planning, etc.).
Drive product discovery with team leads and/or stakeholders to define scope (through story mapping) and slicing out work in smaller chunks (journeys) to determine launch line for rapid learning.
Represent the user, business and technology to drive balanced decisions.

Execution:

Practical understanding of Agile principles and practices
Develop a deep understanding of the customer and product needs
Works closely with lead product owner to represent capabilities and features
Business requirements are represented in the product backlog

Help maintain a prioritized product backlog. Set project execution priority in partnership with Lead PO based on organizational need and roadmap.
Periodically re-prioritize the Product Backlog based on customer feedback, market changes and business priority as communicated by the lead PO.
Formally accepts the user stories once all acceptance criteria are met and demoed
Actively participates in Product Backlog grooming sessions, retrospectives, defect management and project team’s release planning sessions

Job Skills:

Direct hands-on experience with grooming product backlogs and coordinating/prioritizing conflicting requirements.
Moderate to high level of understanding of technical issues (e.g. ability to read Google Page Speed Insights report and determine next steps for Engineering partners) with hands-on experience in software development and/or digital web.
Ability to consume and analyze data to make sound product decisions.
Deep understanding of customer experience
Ability to identify and fill product gaps, generate new ideas that grow market share, and improve the customer experience and drive conversion.
Strong execution skills, work with a high degree of autonomy.
Strong negotiation skills with aptitude to manage controversial situations as well as influence.

Work Experience:

Experience in digital product management and working on an Agile team where they have delivered a digital product to consumers.
Experience working with a variety of partners that provide input regarding content, data analytics, design, testing, and engineering solutions.

Education:

Bachelor’s degree from accredited college and/or equivalent IT experience. (MBA preferred)

Other:

Must be able to travel 10% of time

Must be able to lift 15 lbs.
Typical office setting.
Mobility within the office including movement from floor to floor.
Travel via plane, car, and metro may be required to perform this job.
Must be able to work more than 40 hours per week when business needs warrant
Access information using a computer.
Effectively communicate, both up and down the management chain.
Effectively cope with stressful situations
Strong mental acuity
Regular, dependable attendance and punctuality are essential functions of this job.
Other essential functions and marginal job functions are subject to modification.

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SEI offers a comprehensive package of benefits to employees scheduled 30 hours or more per week. In addition to medical, dental, vision, life and disability plans, SEI employees may take advantage of well-being incentives, parental leave, paid time off, certain paid holidays, tax saving accounts (FSA, HSA), 401(k) retirement benefit, Employee Stock Purchase Plan, tuition assistance as well as entertainment and retail discounts. Non-exempt employees are eligible for overtime pay, if applicable.

Careers - Our Benefits, Strategic Education, Inc

SEI is an Equal Opportunity employer committed to a diverse and inclusive community. We welcome applications from all. While it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top end of the pay range at SEI, we offer a competitive salary. The actual base pay offered to the successful candidate may vary depending on multiple factors including, but not limited to, job-related knowledge/skills, experience, business needs, geographical location, and internal pay equity. Our Talent Acquisition Team is ready to discuss your interest in joining SEI. The expected salary range for this position is below.

$103,900.00 - $155,900.00 - Salary

If you require reasonable accommodations to complete our application process, please contact our Human Resources Department at Careers@strategiced.com.