Product Owner Expert - Kubernetes, CaaS Platform

PNC•Strongsville, OH

19h•$133,000 - $296,400•Onsite

About The 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.

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.
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.

Nice To Haves

Strong understanding of Kubernetes cluster architecture, workload orchestration, networking, RBAC, and security best practices.
Hands-on knowledge of hybrid and multi-cloud environments and experience integrating Kubernetes with enterprise systems.
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

Responsibilities

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.
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.
Represents customers, studies industry trends, and informs product development and adoption.
Oversees product metrics to enhance the performance, usability, and reliability of containerized workloads across various environments.
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.
Apply container security, scan images, secure runtime, enforce policies, and meet enterprise standards.
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.
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.

Benefits

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
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