Senior Principal Product Owner

ZipStaff•Washington, DC

3d•Onsite

About The Position

ZipStaff is seeking a Senior Principal Product Owner to drive the strategic evolution of enterprise platform services for a major transportation organization. Within the Enterprise Platforms & Enablement (EPE) portfolio, this role is the authoritative voice of the customer and champions a “Platform as a Product” approach across Cloud, Observability, Disaster Recovery (DR), and CloudOps value streams. The position bridges business strategy, technical architecture, and cross-functional engineering teams, helping move the organization from traditional project models to an agile, product-centric approach that supports enterprise resiliency, compliance, and operational excellence. The Product Owner defines and communicates product vision and strategy, owns and prioritizes the product backlog, and works with stakeholders and technical teams to turn business needs into user stories and acceptance criteria. The role contributes to multi-year platform roadmaps and performance metrics, and collaborates across product, portfolio, architecture, operations, and engineering functions to deliver capabilities for mission-critical enterprise operations. The position is a W2 contract through ZipStaff and is on-site in Washington, DC.

Requirements

At least 5 years of experience as an Agile Product Owner or Product Manager in a large-scale enterprise environment, including proven experience leading cloud-focused or CloudOps teams.
SAFe 6.0 Product Owner / Product Manager (POPM) certification, or equivalent experience of at least 3 years in Scaled Agile at a large organization.
Deep functional understanding of cloud infrastructure, observability frameworks, disaster recovery ecosystems, and IT Service Management (ITSM).
Hands-on experience managing enterprise backlogs and roadmaps using Jira Software, Confluence, FigJam, and Jira Align.
Exceptional leadership, stakeholder management, and analytical skills, including the ability to independently drive strategy and facilitate complex technical discussions.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business, or a related field; relevant work experience may be accepted in lieu of a degree.
Ability to work on-site in Washington, DC.

Nice To Haves

ITIL certification.
Experience driving Platform as a Product models for cloud, observability, or CloudOps platforms in a large enterprise or transportation environment.
Experience contributing to multi-year roadmaps and establishing platform metrics for adoption and operational efficiency.
Experience facilitating complex technical discussions across architecture, operations, and business stakeholders.

Responsibilities

Define, communicate, and execute product vision and strategy for Cloud and Observability platforms, establishing a “Platform as a Product” delivery model.
Own, prioritize, and refine the product backlog according to business value, technical feasibility, and strategic EPE portfolio goals using SAFe.
Translate complex business needs into clear user stories and acceptance criteria in collaboration with business stakeholders, CloudOps, enterprise architecture, and technical teams.
Drive technical alignment across cloud services, observability, and disaster recovery as an integrated ecosystem.
Contribute to multi-year platform roadmaps and establish metrics to measure value delivery, platform adoption, and operational efficiency.
Collaborate with Product Managers, portfolio leadership, and frontline technical teams to support continuous capability delivery for mission-critical enterprise operations.
Facilitate complex technical discussions across architecture, operations, and business stakeholders.