Lead Product Owner

Caterpillar Inc.•Peoria, IL

2d•$128,470 - $208,770•Hybrid

About The Position

Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc. When you join Caterpillar, you're joining a global team who cares not just about the work we do – but also about each other. We are the makers, problem solvers, and future world builders who are creating stronger, more sustainable communities. We don't just talk about progress and innovation here – we make it happen, with our customers, where we work and live. Together, we are building a better world, so we can all enjoy living in it. Cat Digital is the digital and technology arm of Caterpillar Inc., leveraging the latest technologies to build industry leading digital solutions for our customers and dealers. With over 1.5 million connected assets worldwide, our teams use data, technology, advanced analytics, telematics, and AI capabilities to help our customers build a better, more sustainable world. One Funnel is Caterpillar’s unified approach to delivering targeted, data-driven actions to dealers across sales, service, and operations workflows. PALs (Prioritized Action Lists) are the core of this system—curated, actionable insights delivered to drive specific dealer outcomes. The Lead Product Owner is responsible for defining and prioritizing PAL work across the portfolio by owning intake, backlog, and cross-domain coordination. This role ensures PAL development is aligned to business priorities and delivered as a unified system.

Requirements

Business Analysis: Knowledge of business analysis and the set of tasks, techniques and tools required to identify business needs; ability to recommend solutions that deliver value to stakeholders.
Decision Making and Critical Thinking: Knowledge of the decision-making process and associated tools and techniques; ability to accurately analyze situations and reach productive decisions based on informed judgment.
Effective Communications: Understanding of effective communication concepts, tools and techniques; ability to effectively transmit, receive, and accurately interpret ideas, information, and needs through the application of appropriate communication behaviors.
Software Change Request Management: Knowledge of software change request management; ability to manage software product change requests from customers, prospective customers, vendors, and internal staff.
Software Engineering: Knowledge of software engineering; ability to deliver new or enhanced fee-based software products.
Software Problem Management: Knowledge of strategies, practices and tools for resolving software problems; ability to manage software problems in installed software products.
Software Product Business Knowledge: Knowledge of and experience with the business aspects and operation of a software product; ability to manage install base, current uses, future plans, and product vision.
User Acceptance Testing (UAT): Knowledge of UAT activities, tasks, tools and techniques; ability to design, implement and evaluate acceptance tests for end-users.

Nice To Haves

Previous experience leading cross-product or portfolio-level alignment and governance, with the ability to drive alignment, surface dependencies, and push teams to collaborate in a structured but pragmatic way
Experience owning product structure and data discipline at scale, ensuring consistency in definitions, field ownership, and dependencies across multiple teams and domains
Proven ability to operate in ambiguous environments, establishing intake, prioritization, and release processes where none exist and bringing clarity, structure, and discipline without over-engineering

Responsibilities

Own the PAL intake process, including triage and classification of requests
Define and manage the PAL backlog, prioritizing across domains
Resolve cross-product conflicts and duplication (e.g., overlapping PALs)
Align PAL work to business strategy and portfolio goals
Coordinate across product teams to ensure consistent PAL definitions and scope
Drive release sequencing and coordination across domains
Ensure visibility of priorities through portfolio reviews and governance forums
Establish and enforce clear criteria for PAL vs. product work
Own the PAL release process, coordinating with product and technical teams, write customer-facing release notes and co-author technical releases note with Lead One Funnel Specialist