Product Owner at Southern Company in Birmingham, AL

Job Title: Product Owner

Department Name: Technology Customer Engagement Portfolio

JOB SUMMARY

As part of the Customer Engagement Portfolio within Southern Company’s Technology organization, the Product Owner is responsible for managing and supporting system product enhancements, maintenance, and requests, maintain a well-groomed back log for the Online Customer Care (OCC) suite of solutions including web, batch, and middleware applications. This role will need to collaborate with stakeholders, development teams, vendors, architects, and other cross-functional teams to ensure the successful delivery of a high-quality, scalable, and efficient solutions. This role will involve every aspect of the product development process from discovery, delivery, and support while following SAFe Agile Framework and focusing on upholding a high standard of quality.

This role will report to the Customer Engagement Manger of Application Development in the Technology Organization’s Customer Engagement Portfolio.

JOB REQUIREMENTS

Education:

B.S. degree in preferably in business, IT, engineering, computer science, or another technology-focused field.

Experience/Knowledge/Skills:

Required Skills:

Strong analytical, root cause analysis, and problem-solving skills with ability to elicit and efficiently document business rules and research technical issues

Ability to prioritize and maintain well-groomed backlogs comprising of new features, bugs, technical debt, and knowledge acquisition with good planning and organization skills

Ability to define clear acceptance criteria, work with Developers, QA & UA testers to ensure the quality and accuracy of the assigned area in the OCC product.

Excellent interpersonal skills and strong proactive communications skills including the ability to communicate complex concepts clearly across different audiences at varying levels

Engage with key stakeholders, such as business owners, vendors, marketing teams, and leadership, to understand their needs and gather feedback. Communicate product updates, progress, and timelines to stakeholders

Knowledge and familiarity with transactional web sites, batch processes, databases, APIs and integrated middleware applications

Excellent presentation skills to facilitate demos and support the team to deliver high quality releases on schedule

Experience working in a fast paced, highly collaborative environment with cross-disciplinary teams (Quality Analysts, Developers, Architects, and Analysts) and business groups (technical and non-technical) to shepherd products through the SDLC

Ability to identify and quickly implement process improvements, sound decision making skills and to work with minimal supervision

Preferred Skills:

Working knowledge of utility operating company business unit rules and processes

Prior experience in utility and/or large-scale complex customer facing web applications.

Experience with Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

Technical aptitude to understand web, batch, database, and middleware applications and architecture.

Knowledge of current and relevant digital, mobile, and web best practices in design and implementation

Skilled at leading software projects of varying sizes and degrees of complexity

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES

General Roles and Responsibilities

Define and communicate the application vision, strategy, and roadmap for solutions owned. Align the product roadmap with the overall business goals and objectives

Be primary resource and point of contact with other product teams, helping to coordinate testing and releases

Develop, adapt and carry out product implementation plan throughout SDLC, supporting and championing the vision aligned with business goals

Create, plan, and prioritize an effectively groomed backlog with clear acceptance criteria aligned with business objectives.

Author epics, features and user story acceptance criteria and continuously refine and prioritize user stories based on business value, customer feedback, and market trends

Obtain deep product and business knowledge to act as a subject matter expert for several roles including Dev and QA

Define and instrument success criteria that is measured via qualitative and quantitative feedback and identify growth opportunities for the assigned functional area.

Work with QA testers to ensure the quality and accuracy. Conduct user acceptance testing and validate that the product meets the specified requirements.

Attend PI plannings, provide quality control, facilitate PI demos and review stories. Responsible for accepting stories as done.

Be accountable for each stage of the development process and the final product while taking a primary role in inspecting and evaluating product progress & quality through each iteration.

Manage business expectations, maintain communications, and bring issues to business’ attention proactively; offer solutions.

Create and maintain product documentation, including user guides, release notes, and training materials. Ensure that documentation accurately reflects the features and functionalities of developed solutions

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Other Requirements:

Occasional night and weekend work may be necessary.

Occasional travel may be necessary.