Product Owner

World Bank Group • Washington, DC

1d

About The Position

Working at the World Bank Group provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. The World Bank Group is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries; a unique global partnership of five institutions dedicated to ending extreme poverty, increasing shared prosperity and promoting sustainable development. With 189 member countries and more than 130 offices worldwide, we work with public and private sector partners, investing in groundbreaking projects and using data, research, and technology to develop solutions to the most urgent global challenges. For more information, visit www.worldbank.org

ITS Vice Presidency Context:

The Information and Technology Solutions (ITS) Vice Presidential Unit (VPU) enables the World Bank Group to achieve its mission of ending extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity on a livable planet by delivering transformative information and technologies to its staff working in over 150+ locations. For more information on ITS, see this video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=VTFGffa1Y7w
Department Context:

ITS Operations and Country Engagement Department (ITSOE) delivers innovative products and services to frontline staff working on over 6,000 projects throughout every Region and Global Practice. Our teams support and enable Bank priorities, boost operations efficiency and effectiveness, and facilitate Operational knowledge discovery. Our delivery model leverages global expertise, design and architecture, leading technology, and robust processes to deliver business solutions that ensure value for money.

Unit Context:

The ITS Country Engagement unit (ITSCE) provides digital support for global and country-specific products, aiding thousands of task teams and country management units in better planning, tracking, and managing their operations, thereby improving country engagement. Additionally, ITSCE enables geospatial capabilities through self-service tools and analytics, allowing teams to monitor project preparation and implementation from anywhere.

The AI Acceleration for Regional Operations team supports country, regional, and sector teams in responding to growing demand for fast, scalable, secure, and AI-enabled digital solutions. The team advances rapid AI capability by modernizing systems to cloud-based architectures, enabling secure and scalable operations, and providing shared platforms for AI-enabled ideation, rapid prototyping, and deployment. By leveraging low-code accelerators and reusable components, AI Acceleration reduces development timelines and operational constraints associated with legacy systems, enabling teams to move efficiently from concept to production while ensuring security by design, cost efficiency, predictable scaling, and responsible AI implementation.

The ITSCE unit is looking for a Product Owner who is passionate about AI innovation, committed to delivering solutions that meet user needs and business goals, and has strong Agile product management expertise to lead the rapid design and delivery of CMU-focused AI-first solutions. This role focuses on translating business needs into scalable AI products that drive measurable impact.

The Product Owner will collaborate with the business partners to understand and anticipate their needs and translate them into product requirements; define the product vision and use inspection and adaptation to iterate through versions; create product roadmap; oversee all stages of product creation including design and development; manage the product backlog and prioritize based on changing requirements; and use data to monitor and evaluate product progress at each stage of the process.

The Product Owner will also write effective user stories and liaise with the product team and end users to deliver updates and participate in scrum meetings and product sprints; use feedback loops to get information about the product from real users and rely on analytics to make data-driven decisions.

The incumbent will work closely with business stakeholders, product managers, system architects, designers, other product owners, and developers with an emphasis on strengthening the client centric service delivery for the related business areas, within the context of best practices in enterprise architecture, modern sourcing techniques, modular design of solutions, and appropriate integration of IT services and platforms.

Requirements

• Master's degree with 5 years of experience or a Bachelor’s Degree in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) with a minimum of 7 years of relevant experience, or equivalent combination of education and experience
• Demonstrated expertise in Artificial Intelligence (AI), with solid knowledge of machine learning, natural language processing, and AI-driven solution development. Proven ability to translate complex business requirements into impactful AI-enabled product features.
• A minimum of 4 years of experience in developing and operationalizing product strategies and managing the full product lifecycle.
• A minimum of 3 years of experience in Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban) and strong understanding of Agile planning tracking tools such as Azure DevOps.
• Proven track record of successfully developing and launching technology products in large-scale environments.
• Experience managing vendor engagements.
• Solid understanding of IT development lifecycles and methodologies.
• Strong understanding of business goals and the ability to translate them into product requirements.
• Proven ability to collaborate with other team members across boundaries and contribute productively to the team's work and output, demonstrating respect for different points of view.
• Able to use strong interpersonal and teamwork skills to cultivate effective and productive relationships and partnerships across organizational boundaries.
• Proven ability to define and track key performance indicators relevant to the product and the business goals.
• Mastering data analytics tools to measure client satisfaction, team velocity, and product metrics.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, proficiency in creating concise reports, and presentations.
• Strong presentation and collaboration skills with proven record of leading meetings and influencing stakeholders in multicultural environments.
• Passion for innovation and staying up to date with the latest technology trends.
• Ability to learn quickly and adapt to changing priorities.
• Able to take personal ownership and accountability to meet deadlines and achieve agreed-upon results and has the personal organization to do so.
• Proficiency in English.

Nice To Haves

• Recommended Certifications in SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager, plus certifications in AI/ML.

Responsibilities

• Engages with Country and Regional stakeholders to rapidly understand operational challenges and translate them into clear, high value product requirements and features for AI Acceleration Solutions.
• Creates and communicates a compelling product vision and roadmap, ensuring it supports fast development cycles, MVP release, and scalable replication of AI solutions across multiple countries and regions.
• Maintains and prioritizes the product backlog and user stories based on value, feasibility, and the opportunity for rapid reuse across contexts.
• Plays a key role in end-to-end to product execution, collaborating with solution architects, developers, designers, and cross functional functional teams to bring AI Acceleration solutions to life quickly and effectively.
• Nurtures stakeholder relationships and ensures alignment on product direction, priorities, and expectations, especially in fastmoving and multicountry deployment scenarios.
• Delivers frequent, concise status updates, identifies risks early, and adjusts priorities and requirements as needed to maintain rapid development momentum.
• Plans and executes product updates and future releases using an Agile, data driven approach that supports continuous improvement and scalable rollouts.
• Develops effort and cost estimates, oversees all stages of AI Acceleration product development, and leads user acceptance testing to ensure solutions meet both functional and AI specific validation criteria.
• Assesses impact on end users and identifies change management needs, supporting smooth adoption and replication across different regions.
• Defines clear, actionable product KPIs that reflect the speed, impact, and scalability objectives of AI Acceleration solutions.
• Monitors user feedback, operational trends, Bank priorities, and industry developments, ensuring the product vision evolves with emerging needs and opportunities for reuse.
• Manages vendor engagements to support rapid product delivery, compliance, and integration of reusable AI capabilities.

Benefits

• The World Bank Group offers comprehensive benefits, including a retirement plan; medical, life and disability insurance; and paid leave, including parental leave, as well as reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities.

What This Job Offers

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