Technical Product Owner, Data Management & Operations

Cengage Group•Virtual US OH, OH

5d•$101,900 - $163,000

About The Position

The Technical Product Owner for Data Management & Operations partners with Data Engineering leaders and teams to lead data operations across Cengage. The role directs priority setting, translates detailed data needs into feasible technical specifications, and supports the delivery and ongoing enhancement of dependable, scalable, well-controlled data capabilities. Working across data engineering, architecture, governance, operations, and enterprise data users, the position applies product ownership experience and subject matter knowledge to improve how Cengage acquires, integrates, transforms, manages, monitors, and provides access to data for business and technology objectives. The role helps shape strategy and roadmaps, connects business and technology stakeholders, strengthens data management and governance practices, oversees portfolio execution, and advances data operations and continuous improvement.

Requirements

Extensive background in technical product ownership, technology business collaboration, portfolio/program oversight, data management, data operations, business analysis, or a related technology role.
Demonstrable experience working alongside data engineering teams and translating business and technical requirements into well-defined engineering assignments.
Solid understanding of data engineering concepts, including data pipelines, ETL/ELT, data integration, data modeling, data storage, APIs, data warehouses/lakes/lakehouses, cloud data platforms, and batch and/or real-time data processing.
Knowledge of data management areas including data quality, metadata, lineage, governance, security, access, and lifecycle management.
Experience with operational elements of data platforms, including monitoring, reliability, incident management, performance, scalability, and service-level expectations.
Proven capability to collaborate with senior leaders on strategy and convert strategic direction into actionable priorities.
Experience representing a technology or data function with senior business and technology collaborators.
Demonstrated experience managing sophisticated portfolios or roadmaps involving multiple initiatives, collaborators, dependencies, competing priorities, and constrained capacity.
Solid foundational knowledge of enterprise data management and data governance.
Practical understanding of operational and analytical data modeling concepts.
Strong analytical, systems-thinking, and problem-solving skills.
Proven capability to grasp technical architecture and engineering compromises.
Experience working across Agile and other technology delivery practices.
Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, Data Management, Business, or a similar field, or equivalent work experience.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with Snowflake, SAP, Salesforce, or comparable enterprise data platform technologies and applications.
Familiarity with SQL and/or Python.
Familiarity with established data management frameworks and practices such as DAMA-DMBOK and/or CDMP certification.
Experience contributing to technology investment planning, business cases, vendor evaluations, capacity planning, or other portfolio-level investment decisions.

Responsibilities

Collaborate with Data Management & Operations leadership to develop functional strategy, priorities, roadmaps, and investment plans.
Turn strategy into a consistent portfolio of initiatives, capabilities, operational developments, and technology investments.
Evaluate emerging business and technology needs, identify opportunities and gaps, and develop recommendations.
Help establish and maintain multi-year roadmaps.
Provide leadership with visibility into portfolio health, competing priorities, capacity constraints, dependencies, risks, and decisions requiring attention.
Act as a liaison with business and technology leaders and develop an understanding of Cengage’s business strategies, processes, technology landscape, and data needs.
Engage team members to frame business problems and desired outcomes, and translate sophisticated data concepts for technical and non-technical audiences.
Represent leadership independently in forums and decision-making discussions and build relationships across business functions and technology organizations.
Partner with collaborators to shape and enable scalable data capabilities and champion the adoption and refinement of data management methods.
Drive adoption of data quality practices and alignment with data governance policies, standards, and practices.
Collaborate with technical teams to define business outcomes and requirements, identify systemic gaps and opportunities across data processes, encourage enterprise reuse and standardization, and assist in establishing success criteria.
Drive portfolio execution so priorities translate into coordinated initiatives; coordinate implementation with program/project managers and technical teams.
Maintain portfolio-level visibility into delivery progress and ensure work entering delivery is understood, prioritized, and aligned with outcomes.
Make timely prioritization and tradeoff decisions, provide product ownership and prioritization oversight for relevant backlogs, and work with other TPOs and technology leaders on cross-platform initiatives.
Support productive delivery approaches, clarity, accountability, and continuous development.
Collaborate with leadership and technical teams to set and track expectations for data capabilities.
Use operational performance indicators to identify systemic improvement opportunities and prioritize initiatives that reduce operational burden, increase automation, and improve maintainability.
Balance new capabilities, operational improvements, risk remediation, technical debt, and platform health.
Provide leadership and coordination for significant cross-functional operational issues and continuously advance Data Management & Operations workflows and success indicators.