Director IT Product Owner - Engineering

Eaton Corporation•Raleigh, NC

About The Position

This position is responsible for maximizing the value of Engineering Applications for Product Design by creating, prioritizing, and managing the product backlog. The Product Owner sets and communicates the product vision, develops and maintains the product roadmap, and defines key operational processes such as the product release schedule. Working closely with senior leaders, business partners, and customers, the Product Owner helps shape strategic business objectives and translates them into epics aligned to those goals for Scrum or Kanban teams. The role balances delivery across the full product lifecycle, including new feature innovation, continuous improvement, system health, and ongoing support. As a leader within Eaton’s Information Technology function, this role includes direct people-management responsibility, developing and guiding a team of analysts and engineers to deliver measurable business outcomes. The Product Owner manages product funding, allocates budget to backlog items, and sets work priorities for dedicated product team members. The Product Owner partners closely with analysts, engineers, and other product team members to execute the roadmap, guide the product development lifecycle, define user stories, and represent the voice of the customer across product processes and relevant business units.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution
Minimum 10 years of IT experience
Minimum 3 years’ experience as a Product Owner
Minimum 2 years of manager of people experience
Must be authorized to work in the U.S now or in the future

Nice To Haves

Product Owner certification
Advanced degree
Expertise with product management and modern product delivery processes
Strong understanding of and experience working with Agile, Scrum, and/or Kanban software delivery teams
Strong understanding of DevSecOps principles
Strong understanding modern software development principles including code management, test automation, APIs, microservices, and cloud services.
Strong understanding of Engineering tools such as ENOVIA PLM, Clarity Project Management, ERP, and MES.
Experience with AI tools and platforms such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, or similar and knowledge of data analysis and visualization tools.

Responsibilities

Define and champion the product vision, roadmap, and epics, working with senior leaders to craft strategic business objectives and enterprise-spanning plans to meet customer and business needs
Own the product backlog, managing and prioritizing user stories, decomposing epics into features, and continuous improvement work
Plan, manage, allocate and track product funding and the team's time across full lifecycle activities. Is fully responsible for product budget
Manage a team of IT professionals, providing appropriate coaching to develop employee skills and continuously improve performance
Develops and maintains product-specific persona and customer journeys
Work closely with business stakeholders and customers, understanding their priorities and defining business outcomes and KPIs for the product in collaboration with those key stakeholders
Communicate goals for product increments and releases. Define goals for team sprints.
Support the onboarding of internal and external resources
Accountable for product support, stability, and governance: including data, policy, cybersecurity, and usage
Act as a functional expert in areas related to the product, including across Eaton's portfolio and with other business units
Drive definition and continuous improvement of product processes (e.g., Lean, Agile, Scrum, DevSecOps, etc.)
Understand commercial, business and go-to-market strategies where applicable
Support a Secure Product Development Lifecycle approach that establishes a strong cybersecurity focus and culture across the entire engineering lifecycle
Manage contracts with software and service vendors to support the product strategy. Manage vendor strategy and relationship.