Product Owner

Foundant + smartsimple

21d

About The Position

The Product Owner owns and maintains the backlog for GivingData scrum teams, ensuring it is clear, prioritized, and ready for engineering work. The role leads story refinement, using AI tools to draft and improve stories, synthesize feedback, and create prototypes when useful. It reviews and prioritizes escalations by balancing client impact with planned work, including direct client engagement when needed. Working closely with engineering, the Product Owner participates in scrum ceremonies and connects the team’s work to product goals. The role partners with the Director of Product and Product Design on roadmap definition, prioritization, and release management; represents the client’s perspective to engineering; and collaborates with Product Education and CX to prepare the company for releases and product changes. Over time, the role may expand to include leading client discovery and concept validation, evaluating released features through adoption, usage, and feedback, and developing data-backed business cases for future product investments. Other duties may be assigned.

Requirements

At least 4 years of experience as a Product Owner or in an equivalent product role, owning a backlog for agile teams.
Experience working on B2B software products.
Regular, hands-on use of AI tools in product work, with concrete examples to share.
Must be legally eligible to work in the United States.

Nice To Haves

Experience in the philanthropic or nonprofit sector.
Experience with Jira.
Exposure to digital adoption tools.

Responsibilities

Own, clarify, prioritize, and prepare the GivingData scrum teams’ backlog.
Lead story refinement, using AI to draft and sharpen stories, synthesize feedback, and build prototypes when helpful.
Review and prioritize escalations, balancing client impact with planned work, and engage directly with clients when needed.
Partner with engineering and participate in scrum ceremonies, connecting day-to-day work to product goals.
Partner with the Director of Product and Product Design to define and prioritize the roadmap and provide teams with clear release-management direction.
Represent the client’s perspective to engineering teams.
Work with Product Education and CX to prepare the company for new releases and product changes.
As the role develops, lead client discovery and validate new concepts with clients before development.
Assess post-release feature performance using adoption, usage, and client feedback, and use findings to inform future decisions.
Develop data-backed business cases for larger product investments.
Perform other duties as assigned.

Benefits

Competitive salary and benefits.
Tuition reimbursement or support.
Lifestyle reimbursements.
Mindfulness and fitness initiatives.
Flexible PTO policy.
Professional and personal development opportunities.
Exposure to diverse ideas, expertise, and cross-industry projects through collaboration across teams.
Internal mobility and opportunities for career growth.
Autonomy and responsibility in the role.
Employee recognition.