Product Owner (Remote or Hybrid: Bloomington or St Peter, MN)

Scholarship America combines best-in-class scholarship administration with a nonprofit mission. We are developing relevant, impactful products that grow our business and help more students overcome financial need so they can pursue their higher education goals. If you have a passion for cross-functional teamwork and for leading business initiatives that truly change lives, consider joining the Scholarship America team. Learn more about the Product Owner position and apply below.

The Product Owner is a crucial role in our product management organization, fostering the strategic partnership between business and technology. The incumbent will be responsible for developing requirements and related business rules for existing and new software solutions in the market. This position will be a subject matter expert for one or more services and will work closely with business partners and other subject matter experts in the definition, development, testing, training, implementation, and support of functional requirements.

The Product Owner will also provide cross-organizational support as needed. They will run multiple projects simultaneously, using creative and innovative methods for analysis, design, documentation, and tool selection. The incumbent will need to understand and document integration points and dependencies with other systems and will utilize simple queries to check the status of a service line.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS:

• Contribute to the successful on-time, on-budget, and in-scope delivery of business initiatives.
• Accurately represent the needs of the clients, business owner(s), and other stakeholders to the product team(s), software development teams, and vice versa.
• Lead efforts to solicit, review, document, and refine requirements via interviews, workshops, group meetings, and/or existing systems documentation or procedures.
• Define user personas and develop user stories, use cases with actors and interactions, wireframes, sequence diagrams, and data flow diagrams.
• Understand and effectively communicate to product, project, and business teams all the data elements utilized by the service.
• Derive business requirements from use cases in an agile environment.
• Create, revise, validate, and maintain business flow maps, business requirements, business rules, user stories, user flows, test plans, and acceptance tests.
• Produce “as is” and “to be” process flow diagrams.
• Define conceptual technical and/or non-functional requirement documents to translate business requirements into technical information that developers can use.
• Document and maintain traceability of requirements in agreed-upon systems (e.g., AHA, etc.)
• Work with users and QA, lead the development of test cases based on documented requirements, and perform user testing during sprints and as part of formal testing activities.
• Collaborate with other business analysts to identify all cross-system interfaces, dependencies, and requirements.
• Analyze the impact of new business requirements/user stories on the current application from both a business and technical perspective.
• Participate in daily stand-up meetings with Product, IT, and other business partners to facilitate the understanding, clarification, and implementation of requirements in an Agile development environment.
• Support the enabling and utilization of the Product Lifecycle
• Contribute and support the Product Council governance functions
• Accountable for presenting timely, accurate project and product information to all levels of stakeholders at Scholarship America.
• Groom user stories from the product backlog and plan releases with the IT and Business Managers.
• Working with business owners, drive consensus across multiple stakeholders.
• Provide LOEs and plans for Business Analyst activities.
• Facilitate cross-functional relationships, ensuring all stakeholder input is considered.
• Adapt to changing priorities and procedures. Performs other duties and miscellaneous tasks as required.

REQUIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:

• 5 years’ experience in the field required with a demonstrated track record of product development and management from initial concept, requirements gathering, development/deployment planning, implementation, launch, testing, analysis, iteration, to end-of-life planning.
• Experience participating in the monetization of solutions that meet market or partner demands
• Experience with using data to inform change and decision-making
• Experience successfully operating in a Lean-Agile environment
• Proven success in efficiently and effectively developing use cases, business requirements, and test cases.
• Proven ability to effectively and often simultaneously communicate at operational, technical, and strategic levels to internal and external customers.
• Demonstrated ability to work on a team and achieve results in a team environment.
• Ability to demonstrate creative problem-solving, thoughtful product scoping, and flexibility in a fast-moving environment. Proficient in Microsoft Office.
• Excellent analytical skills and detail-oriented.
• Excellent interpersonal, written, and oral communication, time management, and presentation skills.
• Proven track record of facilitating cross-departmental issue identification, problem-solving, and resolution. Highly customer-centric, service-oriented with the ability to understand, execute and meet customer's expectations.

Full Pay range: Exempt ($62,800 - $78,500 - $94,200)

This is the pay range for our staff in this position, from entry to fully independent and proficient in the role utilizing our propriety systems and processes. The candidate selected for this position will be offered a wage applicable to their background and skill set as aligned to our business.

Application deadline: Sunday, September 22, 2024 (by midnight ET)

At Scholarship America, our team members are motivated by our core values: Student Impact, Teamwork, Inclusion and Curiosity. Our vision is to empower an America where those with the most need have the opportunity to thrive through equitable pathways to education and training, and we are seeking fantastic team members to make that happen.

We know the best person for the job could be anywhere, and that’s why this position can work in a hybrid manner from either our office in Bloomington or Saint Peter, MN or remotely within the continental United States. Our employees enjoy a team-based, flexible work schedule, allowing them to flex around our core hours of Monday-Friday from 8:00 am – 4:30 pm Central Time. Scholarship America is committed to our team’s work/life balance, and our strong learning and development culture supports knowledge growth and professional development for all employees across foundational and job-specific skills.

Scholarship America offers employees a robust total rewards package, focused on supporting their health and well-being now and in the future. We offer comprehensive choices for insurance (medical, dental, vision, basic life), disability (short-term & long-term), flexible spending accounts (medical & dependent care), and a 403(b) retirement fund with a 3% company match.

In addition to schedule flexibility, we also provide paid time away from work (vacation, sick, personal, up to fifteen paid holidays annually), plus employee & dependent educational reimbursement programs which support our overall mission.

Details on our company mission, vision, values and goals can be found at www.scholarshipamerica.org.

We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status.

We Have One Passion. Every Student.