Product Owner Expert - Kubernetes, CaaS Platform

PNC•Strongsville, OH

About The Position

At PNC, our people are our greatest differentiator and competitive advantage in the markets we serve. We are all united in delivering the best experience for our customers. We work together each day to foster an inclusive workplace culture where all of our employees feel respected, valued and have an opportunity to contribute to the company’s success. As a Product Owner Expert within PNC's Technology organization, you can be based Dallas TX, Phoenix AZ, Pittsburgh PA, Strongsville OH or Birmingham AL. PNC will not provide sponsorship for employment visas or participate in STEM OPT for this position. We are looking for an accomplished and experienced Product Owner Expert to support our Kubernetes CaaS Platform. The successful candidate will be instrumental in shaping the strategic direction, defining the roadmap, and facilitating adoption of container hosting platforms across both on-premises and cloud environments. A Product Owner Expert is a senior-level role focused on designing, managing, and evolving container-based platforms (Kubernetes ecosystems) as products for internal or external users. This role serves as a link between technical engineering teams and business stakeholders, ensuring scalable infrastructure solutions are developed, launched, and widely adopted while prioritizing user experience. Owns the vision and definition of the product. Serves as the voice of the Customer. Responsible for ensuring the Scrum Team(s) effort is concentrated on the right priorities based on business value. Maintains a strategic focus in the group while dealing with the most complex matters including but not limited to integration, workflow, and/or risk. Oversees end to end development and 'go to market' approach. Acts as the primary engagement owner to address client/customer needs and ensures value delivery. Takes a proactive approach to mitigate risk issues and solve problems dealing with the integrity of the product backlog. Negotiates with vendors and outside consultants that are needed for the product. Drives efficiency and provides PNL value during all stages of the product. Acts as the lead decision maker for the team and is responsible for crew management. Communicates the delivery of business value and outcomes of the iteration to the stakeholders, clients, and provides updates to senior and executive leadership. PNC Employees take pride in our reputation and to continue building upon that we expect our employees to be: Customer Focused - Knowledgeable of the values and practices that align customer needs and satisfaction as primary considerations in all business decisions and able to leverage that information in creating customized customer solutions. Managing Risk - Assessing and effectively managing all of the risks associated with their business objectives and activities to ensure they adhere to and support PNC's Enterprise Risk Management Framework.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field (or equivalent experience) preferred
7-10 years Relevant Product Management, Product Owner, or Architecture/Software Engineer experience in an agile software product development environment preferred. Advanced level understanding of customer experience
10+ years relevant Product Management or Product Owner experience in cloud, infrastructure, or platform engineering domains preferred.
Experience in Agile software development environments, preferably with developer platform products.
Strong background in Kubernetes, container orchestration, and DevOps tooling (e.g., Helm, ArgoCD, Jenkins, GitOps).
Familiarity with cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) and on-prem solutions (OpenShift, bare-metal Kubernetes, etc.)
Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to present complex technical information to non-technical stakeholders.
Ability to lead cross-functional teams and manage multiple stakeholders effectively.
Successful candidates must demonstrate appropriate knowledge, skills, and abilities for a role.
Listed below are skills, competencies, work experience, education, and required certifications/licensures needed to be successful in this position.
Roles at this level typically require a university / college degree. Higher level education such as a Masters degree, or PhD is desirable.
Industry experience is typically 8 + years.
Specific certifications are often required.
In lieu of a degree, a comparable combination of education, job specific certification(s), and experience (including military service) may be considered.

Nice To Haves

Kubernetes Expertise: Strong understanding of Kubernetes cluster architecture, workload orchestration, networking, RBAC, and security best practices.
Hybrid-Cloud & On-Prem Platforms: Hands-on knowledge of hybrid and multi-cloud environments and experience integrating Kubernetes with enterprise systems.
Agile Practices: Deep experience with Agile methodologies and backlog/project management tools (e.g., Jira, Rally, ADO).
Kubernetes certifications (CKA, CKAD, or CKS) strongly preferred
Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) or SAFe POPM (Preferred)
Cloud certifications (AWS/Azure/GCP) a plus
Accountability
AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Customer Solutions
Data Visualization
Prioritization
RedHat
Scrum
User Experience (UX) Design
Agile Development
Business Acumen
Design Thinking
Effective Communications
Innovation
Interpersonal Relationships
IT Standards, Procedures & Policies
Managing Multiple Priorities
Organizational Leadership
Planning and Organizing
Solutions Development

Responsibilities

Product Strategy & Roadmap: Establishes the long-term vision, strategic direction, and roadmap for containerized infrastructure and Kubernetes services. Ensures alignment of container strategy with organizational objectives such as scalability, reliability, and cost efficiency. Identifies avenues for platform enhancement and innovation.
Technical Leadership: Responsible for overseeing the product development process, collaborating with engineering to convert market requirements into technical specifications for container runtime, security, and orchestration. Guarantees developer usability through self-service options, APIs, and clear documentation. Promotes widespread adoption among engineering teams and provides mentorship as well as guidance to engineers.
Customer & Market Insight: Represents customers, studies industry trends, and informs product development and adoption.
Performance Optimization: Oversees product metrics to enhance the performance, usability, and reliability of containerized workloads across various environments.
Architecture & Design: Develop and set standards for container orchestration systems such as Kubernetes. Establish best practices for CI/CD pipelines, Microservices deployment, and Observability—including logging, monitoring, and tracing. Guarantee robust high availability, fault tolerance, and scalability.
Security & Compliance: Apply container security, scan images, secure runtime, enforce policies, and meet enterprise standards.
Performance & Cost Optimization: Enhance cluster efficiency and resource management, minimize on-prem / cloud expenses through effective container orchestration, and strengthen system performance and reliability in accordance with SLOs/SLAs.

Benefits

PNC offers a comprehensive range of benefits to help meet your needs now and in the future.
Depending on your eligibility, options for full-time employees include: medical/prescription drug coverage (with a Health Savings Account feature), dental and vision options; employee and spouse/child life insurance; short and long-term disability protection; 401(k) with PNC match, pension and stock purchase plans; dependent care reimbursement account; back-up child/elder care; adoption, surrogacy, and doula reimbursement; educational assistance, including select programs fully paid; a robust wellness program with financial incentives.
In addition, PNC generally provides the following paid time off, depending on your eligibility: maternity and/or parental leave; up to 11 paid holidays each year; 9 occasional absence days each year, unless otherwise required by law; between 15 to 25 vacation days each year, depending on career level; and years of service.
To learn more about these and other programs, including benefits for full time and part-time employees, visit pncthrive.com.
PNC’s total rewards package includes things like time off, benefits, learning and career development, wellness programs, recognition and much more.
The benefits and programs highlighted below are just a sampling of what PNC offers its employees.
To learn more, visit our Total Rewards page.

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