Contract Product Owner

This is a 6-12-month W2 contract. It is a 100% remote role based anywhere in the United States.

Our client is in the midst of a major acquisition and is looking for experienced Product Owners who can embed quickly into agile teams and ensure continuity in backlog creation & management, prioritization, and stakeholder alignment in anticipation of the acquisition. Potential for contract to hire as long-term strategy unfolds.

The surge Product Owner(s) will be responsible for:

• Acting as the primary point of contact for one or more agile delivery teams.
• Creating, managing, and refining the team backlog in alignment with the following strategies:
• ○ Employee Experience Program
• ○ Billing Experience
• ○ Mid-Market Experience
• ○ Customer Experience (non-mid market)
• ○ Data Migration
• Writing clear, actionable user stories and acceptance criteria.
• Prioritizing work based on value delivery, dependencies, and team capacity.Participating in key agile ceremonies (e.g., sprint planning, reviews, retrospectives, daily stand-ups).
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to drive successful product delivery during organizational transitions.
• Partner with business SMEs for domain knowledge transfer
• Engaging with business stakeholders to gather requirements and translate them into product features.
• Ensuring delivered functionality meets business expectations and acceptance criteria.
• Escalating risks or blockers that impact delivery timelines or scope.
• Serve as the voice of the customer and internal stakeholders throughout the M&A lifecycle, ensuring business continuity and minimal service disruption.
• Monitor and communicate KPIs related to product performance, user adoption, and operational readiness in the context of post-merger integration.

Deliverables:

• A groomed and prioritized product backlog for assigned teams
• Documented user stories with clear acceptance criteria
• Participation in all agile ceremonies
• Weekly progress reports or updates to key stakeholders
• Clear articulation of risks, blockers, and mitigation plans

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience as a Product Owner in an agile environment
• Strong understanding of Agile frameworks (Scrum, SAFe, or equivalent)
• Proven experience translating business requirements into technical deliverables
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills
• Experience with tools such as Jira, Confluence, LucidChat, or similar

Preferred:

• Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) or SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager (POPM)
• Experience working with decentralized or offshore agile teams
• Familiarity with telecom or similar infastructure systems like OSS/BSS, network inventory, service activation, and billing

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