Development Product Owner Lead-AI/GenAI

USAA•San Antonio, TX

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

We are seeking a Development Product Owner Lead to join the AI Center of Excellence team in USAA’s Data and Analytics office. In this role, you'll support the end-to-end AI delivery chain, from pilot to production. You will serve multiple AI domains, partnering to manage dependencies and risks across the AI landscape. This involves guiding technical teams through all development stages by translating business needs into features and stories, prioritizing work, and managing delivery risks while ensuring adherence to SDLC controls. Your strong critical thinking, problem-solving, and technical knowledge, combined with cross-methodology planning, will ensure predictable business value delivery. Serves as a direct representative of the business on an agile team. Attains, understands, and communicates business vision and needs to write and refine user stories/features/epics, prioritize work, and provide guidance to technical teams across programs/portfolios. Uses critical thinking, problem solving, and Agile principles to partner with business owners, subject matter experts, and the development team to build effective solutions. Possesses an expert knowledge and understanding of and ability to work within multiple delivery methodologies, including Agile and other approaches, to deliver business value.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree; OR 4 years of related experience (in addition to the minimum years of experience required) may be substituted in lieu of degree.
8 years of experience in process improvement, project delivery, business/requirements analysis or directly related to supported business operations/product line.
Expert knowledge of Microsoft Office products, applicable databases and product management tools.
Expert knowledge of multiple technical software delivery methodologies (i.e., Agile, Waterfall, SAFe) with a proven track record in using these skills to develop and manage products through the entire product life cycle.
Expert experience in analyzing business requirements, process flows and use cases to identify opportunities to streamline business processes in accordance with risk management framework and regulatory requirements.
Expert understanding and demonstrated use of Process Engineering methodologies and Change Management practices to translate business requirements into functional specifications.
Expert ability to independently work to gather business requirements, process flows and use cases to develop and deliver on business capabilities within the approved methodology, writing user stories, and following the development process through user story acceptance.
Advanced experience in analyzing and translating business requirements and the ability to identify opportunities to streamline business processes in accordance with risk management framework and regulatory requirements.

Nice To Haves

8+ years in AI/ML product delivery or consulting.
5+ years in product/program management at a major financial institution.
5+ years managing backlogs (JIRA/Clarity) and the full code development lifecycle (story to production).
5+ years managing risks and dependencies across large tech organizations.
Understand AI/ML concepts, lifecycle, data, trade-offs, and business impact.
Proven ability in story decomposition, backlog management, sprint alignment, and release processes.
Expert communication to diverse audiences; ability to influence cross-functional teams (data scientists, engineers).
Demonstrated initiative in tackling ambiguous challenges and driving solutions.

Responsibilities

Works with business and Subject Matter Experts to understand business strategy and vision and then writes, refines, accepts and prioritizes stories, features or epics to support effective and compliant solutions while balancing investment and business value.
Owns and maintains a prioritized work backlog for a single or multiple Agile teams or program.
Product backlog includes complete user stories or features with acceptance criteria so that they are consumable and testable by the Agile team or program.
Reviews and accepts output of I/T and/or business development to ensure specified acceptance criteria have been completed.
Serves as a knowledgeable collaborator across multiple business or system domains; is expected to lead development across multiple teams at the program and Epic level.
Serves as direct representative of the business with one or more delivery teams throughout the product delivery cycle.
Participates in a cross-functional team of user experience partners, designers, business analysts, developers, testers and others to develop, execute, solution and release in alignment with program, portfolio or product road maps.
Partners with sponsors, stakeholders, and IT to facilitate, define and document relevant business processes, gaining an expert understanding of the needs, measures, and risks & controls for the improvement area.
Participates with portfolio, program and project level plans related to schedule, scope and resources.
Prepares the business for the change and provides tactics and metrics for benefits, adoption, and risk.
Leverages existing change management routines, as needed.
Applies expert knowledge in the business development/execution discipline, regularly seeking out opportunities to enhance, improve and advance the function.
Coaches and mentors less experienced Product Owners, including Seniors.
Demonstrates expert knowledge in multiple business or system domains and capable of leading development across multiple teams at the program level.
Identifies engages, influences and leads business stakeholders and Subject Matter Experts across programs.
Ensures risks associated with business activities are effectively identified, measured, monitored, and controlled in accordance with risk and compliance policies and procedures.