Product Owner Associate Director

DTCC • Jersey City, NJ

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Product Owner Associate Director will drive strategic transformation across Clearing and Settlement, delivering high-priority initiatives that modernize platforms and improve client outcomes. The role translates strategic objectives into executable delivery plans and is accountable for predictable, high-quality delivery through backlog readiness, risk and dependency management, and timely scope and prioritization decisions. It operates across business, technology, operations, risk, and client readiness, aligning stakeholders on scope, priorities, testing, release readiness, and measurable outcomes. The role partners with Run the Business (RTB) and Change the Business (CTB) functions and promotes strong product delivery discipline, governance, and continuous improvement.

The position owns end-to-end delivery of prioritized strategic initiatives, product backlog governance, agile delivery leadership, product documentation and solution definition, release and operational readiness, and client and market engagement. It also shares responsibility for annual budget planning and tracking. The role is part of DTCC’s Global Operations, Client Services & Administration group, which supports core securities, transaction processing, and client services while seeking to minimize risk and cost and maximize efficiency.

DTCC offers a flexible/hybrid work model of three days onsite and two days remote. The onsite days include Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with a third day determined by the team or employee. Compensation includes base pay and an annual incentive, and the company describes health, life, well-being, retirement, paid time off, personal/family care, and other leave benefits. The salary range is not provided in the posting.

Requirements

• At least 8 years of related experience.
• Strong product delivery experience in financial market infrastructure, with exposure to Clearing and/or Settlement domains.
• Ability to independently own complex product outcomes from strategy and requirements through implementation, stabilization, and value realization.
• Experience leading multi-year initiatives involving multiple squads, platforms, and business functions.
• Demonstrated ability to drive predictable, high-quality delivery in agile environments.
• Strong understanding of agile frameworks, backlog management, and release planning at scale.
• Ability to identify delivery variance, make timely scope and sequencing decisions, and escalate material risks with clear recommendations.
• Ability to translate strategic objectives into actionable delivery plans and roadmaps.
• Strong prioritization skills, balancing business value, technical constraints, and risk.
• Ability to challenge existing processes, reports, interfaces, data elements, and business rules to advance target-state outcomes.
• Ability to influence and align senior stakeholders across business, technology, and operations.
• Strong communication skills and experience managing cross-functional and global teams.
• Experience leading client meetings, industry working groups, demonstrations, or webinars and representing a product credibly.
• Solid understanding of financial markets, trade lifecycle, clearing, and settlement processes across asset classes such as Equities, Fixed Income, and ETFs (Primary Market).
• Ability to engage effectively with engineering and architecture teams on solution design.
• Strong understanding of operational readiness, resiliency, and risk management in production environments.
• Experience actively managing risks, issues, assumptions, and dependencies with clear ownership, mitigation plans, target dates, and escalation.
• Ability to contribute informed product recommendations to release-readiness and go/no-go decisions.
• Ability to operate independently, exercise sound judgment, and maintain accountability in a complex, highly regulated environment.
• Ability to foster accountability, ownership, and continuous improvement.
• Experience leading retrospectives and embedding delivery best practices across teams.

Nice To Haves

• A bachelor's degree is preferred, or equivalent experience may be accepted.
• Knowledge of related products or asset classes is beneficial where relevant to cross-product dependencies.

Responsibilities

• Deliver prioritized strategic initiatives across Clearing and Settlement end to end, on time and within budget.
• Translate strategic objectives into executable delivery plans, epics, and release roadmaps aligned with enterprise priorities, regulatory requirements, and client needs.
• Own and continually prioritize the squad backlog using business value, client impact, regulatory requirements, risk, dependencies, and available capacity.
• Lead quarterly and ad-hoc prioritization forums and maintain backlog hygiene and readiness for Sprint 0 and delivery planning in accordance with Delivery Practice Standards.
• Lead and participate in agile ceremonies, including stand-ups, sprint planning, Sprint Zero, reviews, retrospectives, and summits.
• Drive predictable, high-quality delivery through planning, dependency management, and risk mitigation; monitor performance, milestones, and critical paths, and escalate threats early.
• Promote accountability, transparency, and continuous improvement across squads.
• Partner with RTB, CTB, Engineering, Architecture, UX/UI, QA, and Operations to balance delivery trade-offs and coordinate business and technology stakeholders.
• Manage dependencies across multiple teams and systems.
• Own end-to-end product documentation, translating strategic priorities into requirements, solution designs, epics, and user stories; ensure completeness, accuracy, and traceability.
• Govern change requests and ensure alignment with strategic intent.
• Oversee the release calendar and operational readiness planning with RTB, CTB, and Technology teams, including client-facing documentation, training and enablement materials, and operational process updates.
• Ensure release plans address controls, resiliency, recoverability, performance, monitoring, operating procedures, training, support, and production stabilization.
• Provide product input to go/no-go decisions and confirm operational ownership before transition to business-as-usual support.
• Share responsibility across RTB/CTB for annual budget planning, submission, and tracking; use resources efficiently within budget constraints.
• Identify client impacts early and include communications, specifications, connectivity, onboarding, testing, adoption, and readiness activities in delivery plans.
• Partner with Client Readiness, Relationship Management, Operations, Legal, Marketing, and Technology to provide accurate and timely implementation guidance.
• Represent the product in client meetings, working groups, demonstrations, and industry forums as needed.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation, including base pay and annual incentive.
• Comprehensive health and life insurance and well-being benefits, based on location.
• Pension / Retirement benefits.
• Paid Time Off and Personal/Family Care, and other leaves of absence to support physical, financial, and emotional well-being.
• Flexible/hybrid work model of three days onsite and two days remote.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director