Technical Product Owner - NASA

INNOVIM is seeking a Technical Product Owner to work in a fast-paced Agile environment that ensures the accurate and timely design, development, and deployment of products and services that allows the large collection of NASA earth science data to be more discoverable by the end user community. Search and Discovery is an Agile Release Train in which the products and services are built as part of the NASA’s Earth Observing System Data Information System (EOSDIS) program, which provides end-to-end capabilities for managing NASA’s Earth science data from various sources – satellites, aircraft, field measurements, and other programs. Search and Discovery products include the Common Metadata Repository (CMR).

This position is REMOTE, based out of Annapolis, MD
U.S. citizenship is required
Quarterly travel to Annapolis, MD for PI Planning

The following duties are expected to be carried out by the Product Owner:

• Define and own the product roadmap for our large-scale backend system, aligning with business needs and technical feasibility.
• Work directly with engineers to evaluate, plan, and prioritize new features, optimizations, and architectural improvements.
• Ensure that performance benchmarks are maintained, even as our dataset and API usage grow.
• Stay ahead of industry trends, proactively identifying new technologies or approaches that could improve system scalability, reliability, and efficiency.
• Act as the interface between business and engineering, translating high-level goals into actionable technical plans.
• Drive technical discussions and ask insightful questions to ensure feasibility and identify risks early.
• Manage trade-offs between short-term delivery and long-term scalability, making decisions that balance technical debt and future needs.
• Maintain a deep understanding of the system architecture, API functionality, and data storage constraints to ensure informed decision-making.
• Facilitate an engineering-first culture, ensuring that technical excellence remains at the core of product development.
• Work with stakeholders to define clear success metrics for product performance and growth.

Required Experience, Knowledge, and/or Skills:

• At least 6 years in a Technical Product Owner, Technical Program Manager, or similar role with a strong focus on backend systems and API development.
• Technical background (engineering experience highly preferred) with a strong understanding of large-scale data storage and backend infrastructure.
• Experience working with high-volume, large-scale databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, NoSQL, distributed storage solutions).
• Solid understanding of API development, performance optimization, and scalability challenges.
• Ability to ask deep technical questions and critically assess engineering decisions.
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to navigate trade-offs in a resource-constrained, high-performance environment.
• Experience working in lean engineering teams—you understand how to move fast without the safety net of large ops or QA teams.
• Comfortable working with observability tools, monitoring performance, and troubleshooting issues with engineers.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to break down complex technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders and experience creating RACI charts.

Required Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field

Desired Experience:

• Hands-on experience with GraphQL, STAC APIs, or other geospatial data APIs.
• Experience working in high-growth environments where backend scalability was a key focus.
• Familiarity with modern cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or similar).
• Experience leading database migrations, performance tuning, or re-architecting data storage solutions.
• Knowledge of distributed systems, caching strategies, and database sharding.
• Exposure to AI/ML approaches for large-scale data analysis.
• Experience using Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), particularly as a Product Owner.

INNOVIM is committed to providing superior work in the fields of science, engineering, data analytics and technology to government agencies. We offer competitive compensation packages, including comprehensive nationwide Medical/Dental/Vision insurance programs, life insurance, matching 401k contribution and Educational/Training support.