Sr Technical Product Owner

We Impact Lives Through Purpose-Driven Work in A People First Culture

Ascend Learning is the connection between a powerful portfolio of brands serving students, educators, and employers with outcomes-based, data driven solutions across the lifecycle of learning.

Our values-driven culture unifies our teams and inspires a mindset of action, innovation, and collaboration, with a relentless focus on customers.

We're always looking for talented, passionate professionals to join us in our mission to help change lives. If this sounds like an environment where you'd thrive, read on to learn more.

Ascend Learning leads the way in innovation and solution creation to improve outcomes and deliver results for students, educators, and healthcare workers in the ever-changing field of healthcare. We offer advanced resources that drive nursing success, empower front-line certified allied health workers, help physicians pass boards and stay current, and provide education management tools for medical education programs.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

The Sr Technical Product Owner (TPO) is the voice of the product and singular role driving business requirements into agile teams. This role is required to serve as a key conduit between business/product objectives and technical execution. The purpose of the TPO role is to enable effective and efficient execution of technical product development with a clear understanding of the desired end product to meet customer needs, based on well-defined user stories.    

WHERE YOU’LL WORK

• This position will work a hybrid schedule from our Leawood, KS office location preferred. Remote will be considered within the United States.

HOW YOU’LL SPEND YOUR TIME

• Balance and prioritize feature requests across multiple brands, ensuring alignment with the core platform roadmap.
• Conduct work prioritization and work sequencing, and manage sprints and development of new features / products. Continuously map back to integrated roadmap milestones to ensure alignment on delivery. 
• Be a stakeholder collaboration across multiple teams.   Act as the key resource between multiple brand product owners (BPOs) and the engineering team.
• Defining and managing platform level features: work closely with engineers to translate business requirements into technical execution plans.
• Prioritize and manage backlogs, maintaining a well-prioritized list of features and user stories; use feedback from user engagement to adapt/modify requirements, features, prioritization of features, and product performance.  
• Engage with Technical Product Managers and business product owner as needed to gather and understand customer needs and requirements, incorporating feedback into the backlog.  
• Modify/change product features and requirements in response to new information on markets/customers from Product Managers.  
• Track and manage product development to ensure alignment with established product requirements and market / user feedback .
• Support development teams in grooming the backlog during sprint planning by clarifying user stories and setting priorities.  
• Oversee performance against success criteria, including customer perspective and UAT/OT.  
• Drive alignment through effective and consistent communication.
• Deliver consistent and clear release notes.
• Support and drive documentation that supports both the delivery of capabilities that meet customer needs and enable training and implementation of capabilities.  
• Articulate risk and mitigations early and often.  
• Drive decision making on tradeoffs through clear understanding of business need, technical options and viable options. 

 WHAT YOU'LL NEED

• Bachelor's degree in related fields, such as Business Administration, Information Technology, Computer Science or other areas combined with relevant work experience.  
• Experience working in an agile environment is strongly preferred.  
• At least 5 years of combined experience in a combination of project management, consulting, Agile development or information technology (project management alone is insufficient).  
• Strong Multi-Stakeholder Management Skills: Experience balancing competing priorities across multiple levels of stakeholders.
• Experience in platform level product development: Prior experience managing shared platform capabilities.
• Experience working in a dynamic environment, with need to adapt to changing priorities, market dynamics, and evolving business needs and guide teams accordingly.  
• An exceptional communicator and collaborator, adept at working across different functions and diverse cultures.  
• Ability to successfully translate business requirements into features and user stories, and manage/ prioritize a feature backlog.   
• Effective communicator and collaborator able to breakdown complex business problems into logical and deliverable work that can easily tie back to business themes and priorities. 
• Ability to ensure that the vision for 'how a product needs to perform for a customer' is embodied in the design of the product, including for technical specifications.  
• In-depth understanding of Agile methodology (tools, processes, roles).  
• Ability to understand minimum viable product requirements and prioritize accordingly.  
• Exhibits strong leadership, team-building,  and communication skills.  
• Strong project management skills, including ability to manage deadlines, prioritize assignment of tasks, and identify issues and mitigate/manage risks.  
• Strong digital acumen and understanding of digital technologies.  

BENEFITS

• Flexible and generous paid time off
• Competitive medical, dental, vision and life insurance
• 401(k) employer matching program
• Parental leave
• Wellness resources
• Charitable matching program
• Hybrid work
• On-site workout facilities (Leawood, Gilbert, Burlington)
• Community outreach groups
• Tuition reimbursement

Fostering A Sense of Belonging

We seek out and celebrate all people and perspectives and cultivate an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive, feel valued and be their authentic selves. Our culture is firmly rooted in the belief that by embracing our differences and drawing on diverse perspectives, we are a stronger, more innovative, and more successful organization where employees experience a sense of belonging.

About Ascend Learning

As a tech-enabled services company, Ascend Learning is a national leader in developing and delivering data-driven online educational content, software, assessments, analytics, and simulations serving institutions, students and employers across healthcare, fitness and wellness, public and workplace safety, skilled trades, insurance, financial services, cybersecurity, and higher education. We're committed to accelerating the learning pathways that can move people into careers where they have the knowledge and skills to have an impact and help change lives in the communities they serve. Headquartered in Burlington, MA with additional office locations and hybrid and remote workers in cities across the U.S., Ascend Learning was recognized by Newsweek and Plant-A Insights Group as one of America's 2023 Greatest Workplaces for Diversity.

Ascend Learning, LLC is proud to be an equal opportunity employer (M/F/Vets/Disabled). No agency or search firm submissions will be accepted. Applications for U.S. based positions with Ascend Learning, LLC must be legally authorized to work in the United States and verification of employment eligibility will be required at the time of hire.

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