Technical Product Owner

Speridian Technologies•Sacramento, CA

1d•Remote

About The Position

Speridian Technologies is recruiting for a Senior Technical Product Owner for our State of California Client, the Department of Healthcare Services, Behavioral Health. This person will be part of a long-term, fully budgeted, state-of-the-art, extremely vast technical modernization project working with a variety of cross-functional teams and stakeholders. This is a remote role; however, there will may meetings in the Sacramento area during the year. Candidates are expected to work business hours, Monday-Friday, Pacific Time Zone. Join DHCS’s Behavioral Health Transformation: Where Purpose Meets Innovation Location: Remote in the United States Department: Department of Healthcare Services (DHCS) Commitment: Full-Time Consultant (W2 employee of Speridian or 1099/IC for Speridian) Why DHCS? At DHCS we are leading a transformative journey in Behavioral Health, reshaping systems and services to ensure better outcomes for communities across California. Our Behavioral Health transformation initiative is more than a project—it’s a movement to make California a leader in accessible, high-quality health services. We’re setting the stage for a new era of government services built on agile methodologies, cutting-edge technology, continuous improvement, and a relentless commitment to serving the public good. At DHCS, we’re looking for innovators who are passionate about purposeful work and excited by the opportunity to drive lasting change through innovative solutions. Our Core Values (Achieve Together, Be Curious, Elevate Yourself, and Deliver Value) We achieve together by championing a team-oriented workplace built on mutual respect, collaboration, and open communication. We encourage individuals and teams to constantly be curious and seek a deeper understanding and fresh ideas that drive innovation and meaningful change. We provide a supportive workplace where you can elevate yourself and achieve personal growth through continuous learning, focused effort, and perseverance. We deliver value as part of every action we take to serve California’s citizens We work within government, for government—but we don’t work like government We’re agile in practice and philosophy We’re purpose-driven and outcome-obsessed We’re modernizing behavioral health technology in California—including addressing overdose, suicide, and the crises that leave people on the streets We’re honest about the challenges—state government is bureaucratic, and we can't match most tech salaries. But here’s what we can offer: Purpose that matters Teammates who care deeply Work-life balance (no nights, weekends, offshore or burnout) Fully remote work We're not just changing legacy tech into modern, scalable tech—we're changing how the government sector uses technology Description The Senior Technical Product Owner drives delivery of DHCS’s modern data platform and behavioral health (BH) data products. This role owns the backlog for data engineering teams and ensures alignment between business, policy, and technical objectives. The PO partners with Product Managers, data engineers, analysts, and policy experts to enable accurate, timely, and actionable data pipelines and reporting capabilities. This role is responsible for converting objectives, key results, product strategy, and roadmaps into well-groomed, prioritized backlogs that deliver measurable value, improve data quality, and ensure compliance with state and federal behavioral health reporting requirements.

Requirements

7+ years in product ownership with significant experience in data, analytics, and reporting.
Proven track record managing complex data engineering or analytics backlogs in an Agile environment.
Experience with reporting requirements development, data modeling, data platforms, data pipelines, and analytics tools (e.g., Databricks, Snowflake, PowerBI, Tableau).
Demonstrated ability to translate policy and compliance requirements into technical product deliverables.
Demonstrated experience supporting products or teams operating in cloud-based environments such as AWS and Azure, with a strong understanding of infrastructure, deployment workflows, and cloud-native service integration.
Backlog and roadmap management for data products and/or platforms
Strong understanding of data engineering concepts (ETL/ELT, entity resolution, semantic layers, data governance)
Data-driven decision-making and outcome-based prioritization
Ability to define, track, and communicate product OKRs and metrics
Exceptional communication and storytelling to bridge technical and non-technical stakeholders
Owns the full operational lifecycle of their product area—including backlog management, incident response, and risk mitigation—ensuring stability, resilience, and alignment with business goals.
Strategic and systems-level thinking with ability to balance short-term delivery and long-term planning
Effective leadership in cross-functional, highly regulated environments

Nice To Haves

Background in healthcare, government, or compliance-driven industries strongly preferred.
Experience working with policy and program staff to align data products with legislative and regulatory mandates.
Knowledge of data privacy and security requirements in healthcare.

Responsibilities

Backlog Ownership & Prioritization
Own, refine, and maintain the product backlog for data engineering teams delivering the DHCS data platform and BH data products.
Translate policy, program, and stakeholder requirements into actionable epics, features, and user stories with clear acceptance criteria.
Strategic Alignment & Delivery
Collaborate with Product Managers to define and maintain product objectives and key results (OKRs).
Align backlog priorities with strategic goals, compliance mandates, and agency-wide data initiatives.
Collaborates with Product & Delivery Managers on budget oversight and financial accountability—including tool procurement, monitoring burn rate relative to sprint velocity, and ensuring alignment between delivery cadence and contractual or funding constraints.
Data Product Development
Support delivery of core data products including reporting pipelines, compliance dashboards, analytics tools, and data integration services.
Ensure data solutions enable oversight, performance monitoring, and cross-county learning.
Stakeholder & Policy Integration
Work with policy teams, analysts, and external partners (e.g., counties, MCPs, QHIOs) to gather requirements and validate outputs.
Ensure solutions align with behavioral health policy, reporting standards, and privacy regulations (HIPAA, 42 CFR Part 2).
Metrics & Continuous Improvement
Define, track, and report on success metrics (e.g., data quality, pipeline performance, reporting accuracy, adoption).
Drive backlog items that improve data completeness, timeliness, and usability.
Facilitate discovery, prototyping, and testing to validate solutions.
Collaboration & Leadership
Lead agile ceremonies with cross-functional teams (engineering, analytics, UX, policy).
Champion the voice of data users and ensure solutions meet the needs of DHCS analysts, leadership, and counties.
Provide thought leadership on best practices in data product development and platform management.