Job Description & Details
This is a solid 12-month contract opportunity as a Product Owner embedded within a massive global financial institution. You'll be driving sprint backlogs and bridging the gap between business stakeholders and tech teams under a hybrid work model.
What You'll Actually Be Doing
You will spend your days wrestling with backlog prioritization, grooming user stories, and preparing for PI Planning like your life depends on it. Expect to lead relentless refinement sessions, define strict acceptance criteria, and handle UAT and production validation scripts. You'll act as the single source of truth for the dev team while juggling shifting stakeholder demands and enterprise risk.
The Core Tech Stack
Jira and Confluence are your bread and butter here, alongside a deep, practical fluency in SAFe and Agile methodologies. You aren't just writing tickets; you are managing the lifecycle of features in a heavily regulated financial environment where every dependency matters.
Interview Expectations
Expect to be grilled on how you handle scope creep when a senior stakeholder tries to sneak an un-groomed epic into an active sprint. The hiring manager is looking for backbone, diplomacy, and a systematic approach to saying "no" without alienating the business. You'll also likely field situational questions about a PI Planning event that went off the rails and how you salvaged the release train.
Application Advice
Make sure your resume aggressively highlights your time spent inside Jira and your specific wins with Agile transformations or SAFe frameworks. Don't just list "Product Owner"—spell out metrics around velocity, backlog health, and how you reduced technical debt while keeping business stakeholders happy.