E T Consultant - Product Owner

World Bank Group•Washington, DC

10d•Onsite

About The Position

The World Bank Group’s Information and Technology Solutions Finance unit supports core finance and risk functions and helps increase the agility of financial operations. Its portfolio includes Treasury, Risk, Accounting and Financial Operations, and Developmental Finance. The unit is operationalizing SAFe Lean Portfolio Management. The Product Owner will support the Corporate Reporting Agile Team, combining product ownership with financial data analysis. The role owns the team backlog, translates business requirements into actionable user stories and acceptance criteria, and leads planning, refinement, and review activities with the Scrum Master and development team. The Product Owner also defines and communicates the product vision and multi-year roadmap, aligning team delivery with institutional strategy and reporting priorities. The role acts as the primary liaison between the team and stakeholders across Finance, Accounting, the Controller’s office, and IT. It coordinates user acceptance testing and determines whether completed work meets acceptance criteria and the Definition of Done. The Product Owner also analyzes financial data for corporate reporting and ad hoc requests, improves and automates reporting processes, develops dashboards and visual reports, monitors product and adoption metrics, and supports change management and communications related to reporting capabilities. The duty location is Washington, DC, USA.

Requirements

Master’s degree with at least 5 years of relevant experience, or a bachelor’s degree with at least 7 years of relevant experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
5–10 years of direct SAFe experience at scale.
SAFe Practice Consultant (SPC), Advanced SPC (ASPC), or SPC Trainer (SPCT) certification is listed as required/preferred in the posting.
Working knowledge of Azure DevOps at Team and ART levels.
Strong facilitation, coaching, and executive communication skills; fluency with SAFe Kanban systems and flow metrics.
Proficiency in data analysis tools including SQL and Python.
Familiarity with financial reporting platforms such as SAP, Oracle, Azure Data Lakehouse, or equivalent systems.
Strong working knowledge of Power BI, Tableau, or Microsoft Excel for reporting and visualization.
Understanding of financial accounting principles, financial reporting standards, and financial statement analysis.
High attention to detail and strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
Effective written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex data clearly to diverse audiences.
Strong interpersonal skills for engaging stakeholders, end users, the Product Manager, System Architect, and Agile team members; ability to manage competing interests and negotiate trade-offs diplomatically.
Skill in creating, refining, and prioritizing team backlogs; writing actionable user stories and acceptance criteria; decomposing features and epics; and applying prioritization techniques such as WSJF.
Ability to communicate product vision, strategy, and roadmap and align iteration-level work with program objectives and business priorities.
Commitment to understanding customer needs and user experience through user research, feedback gathering, persona definition, and acceptance criteria that reflect user expectations.
Ability to analyze business requirements, evaluate solution options, make decisions under uncertainty, interpret data and metrics, identify dependencies and risks, and resolve blockers.
Working conceptual understanding of technical environments, system architecture, data platforms, integrations, data models, APIs, and non-functional requirements such as performance, security, and scalability.
Ability to accept or reject work against acceptance criteria and the Definition of Done, interpret Agile metrics such as velocity, flow efficiency, lead time, and feature adoption, and participate in continuous improvement.
English language proficiency.

Nice To Haves

Financial institution experience is strongly preferred.
Additional certifications preferred: SAFe Release Train Engineer (RTE), SAFe Agile Product Manager (APM), SAFe Product Owner (PO/PM), Scrum, or Kanban.

Responsibilities

Own and maintain the team product backlog, ensuring stories are defined, estimated, prioritized, and ready for sprints.
Translate business requirements into actionable user stories with clear acceptance criteria, and decompose features and epics into team-level work.
Lead sprint planning, backlog refinement, and sprint review ceremonies in collaboration with the Scrum Master and development team.
Define and communicate the product vision and multi-year roadmap, aligning delivery with institutional strategy, reporting priorities, and program objectives.
Serve as the primary liaison between the Corporate Reporting Agile Team and stakeholders across the World Bank Group, including Finance, Accounting, the Controller’s office, and IT.
Represent the product portfolio to senior stakeholders, manage competing priorities, and ensure business needs are captured in the backlog.
Coordinate user acceptance testing and accept or reject completed work based on acceptance criteria and the Definition of Done.
Collect, process, analyze, and present financial data for corporate reporting and respond to ad hoc analytical requests.
Coordinate with Finance, Accounting, and IT on data definitions, reporting requirements, and system changes.
Identify opportunities to automate and streamline financial reporting processes and improve data accuracy.
Develop and maintain standardized templates, data dictionaries, and reporting workflow documentation.
Develop interactive dashboards and visual reports using tools such as Power BI and Tableau, communicating findings to technical and non-technical audiences.
Monitor product performance and adoption metrics and use data to guide prioritization, delivery, and reporting improvements.
Participate in Inspect & Adapt sessions and promote learning, experimentation, and iterative refinement.
Support change management and communications to help stakeholders understand and adopt improvements to the corporate reporting platform.