Product OwnerManager

Role: Product Owner/Manager

Location: Chicago IL

Work mode: Hybrid (3 days onsite)

Duration: Contract

Responsibilities:

1. Product Lifecycle Ownership:

• Own features end-to-end from discovery and definition through development launch and iteration.
• Maintain and prioritize the product backlog in alignment with business objectives customer needs and technical constraints.
• Define success metrics for each release and track outcomes post-launch to inform the next iteration.

2. Requirements & Communication:

• Articulate product requirements clearly and unambiguously to engineering design QA and business stakeholders.
• Lead backlog refinement sprint planning and demos; act as the primary point of contact for the development team throughout the sprint.
• Translate ambiguous business problems into concrete scope acceptance criteria and release plans.

3. Design Collaboration:

• Work directly in Figma to review flows annotate designs create low-fidelity wireframes and prototype concepts when needed.
• Partner with designers to ensure user flows edge cases and interaction details are covered before development begins.

4. Jira & Story Writing:

• Write clear well-scoped user stories in Jira with strong acceptance criteria context and linked design and technical references.
• Structure epics stories and sub-tasks so engineering teams can plan and deliver confidently without repeated back-and-forth.
• Maintain a clean prioritized backlog with consistent labeling estimation and release tagging.

5. AI-Accelerated Delivery:

• Use AI tools (e.g. Claude ChatGPT Copilot Notion AI or similar) to accelerate requirement drafting story writing competitive research and stakeholder communication.
• Identify opportunities to introduce AI-assisted workflows across the product team to improve throughput and quality.
• Apply sound judgment when using AI output - validating editing and contextualizing results rather than copying them wholesale.

Required Qualifications:

• 8 years of experience as a Product Owner Product Manager or equivalent role in an agile software environment.
• Demonstrated understanding of the full product lifecycle: discovery definition delivery launch and iteration.
• Proven ability to write clear engineer-ready user stories and acceptance criteria in Jira.
• Working proficiency in Figma - able to navigate files leave structured feedback and create basic wireframes or prototypes.
• Hands-on experience integrating AI tools into day-to-day product work to improve speed and quality.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; comfortable presenting to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience working in Scrum Kanban or hybrid agile environments.

Nice to Have:

• Prior contract or consulting experience; able to ramp quickly in a new domain.
• Exposure to SaaS B2B platforms or AI/ML-powered products.
• Familiarity with analytics tools (e.g. Amplitude Mixpanel GA4) and basic SQL.
• Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) or equivalent certification.

Key skills: Product owner/ Product manager Scrum Figma AI tools Kanban Jira