Senior AI Product Owner
Newton, MA - USA
Job Summary
Ascensus is the leading independent technology and service platform powering savings plans across America providing products and expertise that help nearly 16 million people save for a better today and tomorrow.
Position Summary
As a Senior Product Owner Enterprise AI Platform you will define prioritize and drive execution of platform capabilities that turn modern AI technology into practical reliable and measurable business value.
This role provides product ownership and delivery leadership across multiple scrum teams. You will partner closely with:
- Software Engineers
- SDETs
- DevOps Engineers
- Support Engineers
- Architects
- Product leaders
- AI specialists
- Business stakeholders
- Operational leaders
This is a senior product ownership role for someone who can balance business outcomes user needs technical complexity delivery execution responsible AI adoption and team effectiveness.
You will be responsible for:
- Defining and maintaining the roadmap for Enterprise AI Platform capabilities
- Prioritizing team backlogs based on business value user impact risk dependencies and platform strategy
- Translating business needs into clear epics features user stories acceptance criteria and measurable outcomes
- Representing users internal customers and stakeholders throughout planning delivery validation and release
- Partnering with engineering architecture AI support operations and business teams to deliver production-grade AI capabilities
- Staying informed on emerging AI tools models workflows and platform patterns
- Partnering with technical teams to shape demos POCs pilots and early concepts that validate value before larger investment
- Helping teams operate effectively by applying Agile practices pragmatically not performatively
This role requires an AI product builder mindset: the ability to combine product ownership user experience thinking technical curiosity and AI-assisted prototyping to help teams validate ideas quickly and focus on the highest-value opportunities.
The Senior Product Owner should be comfortable using demos workflow sketches lightweight prototypes user feedback and production data to shape product direction before larger engineering investment is made. AI prototyping is increasingly becoming part of modern product discovery because product leaders can use AI tools to turn PRDs sketches and designs into working prototypes faster than traditional handoff cycles.
What Were Looking For
We are looking for a senior product owner who can balance product strategy delivery execution stakeholder alignment technical curiosity team effectiveness and business value realization.
The ideal candidate is someone who:
- Has strong product ownership experience in technology-driven environments
- Can oversee product direction and backlog health across multiple scrum teams
- Can translate business goals into clear actionable team backlogs
- Writes strong user stories acceptance criteria and product requirements
- Thinks deeply about user workflows usability adoption and the associate experience
- Uses wireframes workflow sketches journey maps lightweight prototypes or AI-assisted demos to clarify product direction and gather feedback
- Is naturally curious about AI automation platform capabilities and emerging technology
- Can partner with technical leaders to turn early ideas into demos POCs pilots or backlog-ready capabilities
- Prioritizes competing needs across users stakeholders dependencies technical constraints and delivery capacity
- Applies Agile Scrum practices selectively when they improve clarity alignment delivery or continuous improvement
- Helps identify blockers dependency issues team friction and process gaps
- Can facilitate planning refinement reviews retrospectives and cross-team coordination when useful
- Partners well with engineers SDETs DevOps engineers support teams architects AI specialists business stakeholders and senior leaders
Required Qualifications
- 7 years of professional experience in product ownership product management business analysis technology delivery software engineering quality engineering or a related field.
- 4 years of experience as a Product Owner Product Manager Business Analyst or similar role supporting software delivery teams.
- Experience providing product ownership or delivery leadership across multiple scrum teams products workstreams or complex initiatives.
- Experience owning or supporting product roadmaps team backlogs feature prioritization sprint planning and release planning.
- Experience translating business needs into clear epics features user stories acceptance criteria and measurable outcomes.
- Strong understanding of Agile delivery practices and modern software development life cycle practices.
- Ability to apply Agile practices pragmatically using planning refinement reviews retrospectives and team coordination when they improve delivery alignment or continuous improvement.
- Experience working closely with software delivery teams that include:
- Software Engineers
- SDETs
- DevOps Engineers
- Support Engineers
- Quality Engineers
- Ability to prioritize work based on business value user impact technical risk dependencies and delivery capacity.
- Experience supporting user acceptance testing release readiness product validation and feedback loops.
- Ability to use product discovery techniques lightweight prototypes demos workflow diagrams or AI-assisted tools to validate user needs and improve stakeholder alignment.
- Strong communication facilitation negotiation conflict resolution and stakeholder management skills.
- Strong analytical skills with the ability to use data feedback and KPIs to guide product decisions.
- Ability to create clarity in ambiguous or fast-changing environments.
- Demonstrated curiosity and ability to learn quickly in a fast-evolving technical environment.
- Bachelors degree in Business Computer Science Computer Information Systems Business Information Systems a related field or equivalent practical experience.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience with one or more of the following is helpful but not required:
- Product ownership for enterprise platforms internal developer platforms AI platforms shared services or internal business applications
- AI-enabled applications LLM-powered systems RAG chatbots agent workflows prompt strategies or AI-assisted engineering practices
- Azure Azure AI Foundry Azure DevOps Aha! Miro or similar tools
- Writing behavior-driven development or BDD scenarios and acceptance criteria
- Automated testing SDET practices Playwright Python-based test automation or end-to-end testing
- CI/CD release automation production readiness incident trends or operational improvement
- Observability product analytics telemetry user feedback or operational metrics
- Enterprise systems such as Salesforce internal platforms APIs workflow systems or service-oriented architectures
- Organizational readiness change management training adoption planning or support enablement
- Coordinating product direction backlog alignment and dependencies across multiple scrum teams
- Shaping or evaluating AI-related demos POCs pilots prototypes or early-stage product concepts
- Turning discovery learnings stakeholder feedback and pilot outcomes into product roadmap decisions
- Facilitating Agile team activities delivery health conversations retrospectives dependency resolution or continuous improvement efforts
- Coaching or mentoring other Product Owners Business Analysts or Scrum Team members
What Success Looks Like
You will be successful in this role if you:
- Build and maintain a clear prioritized roadmap for Enterprise AI Platform capabilities.
- Keep multiple team backlogs healthy actionable and aligned to business and platform priorities.
- Translate ambiguous business needs into clear sprint-ready work.
- Help teams deliver high-quality AI-enabled capabilities consistently.
- Make practical prioritization decisions when demand exceeds capacity.
- Use KPIs user feedback production data and business outcomes to guide product decisions.
- Stay curious about emerging AI technologies and identify where they can create practical value.
- Use demos pilots POCs prototypes and early experiments to validate ideas before scaling investment.
- Blend product judgment user experience thinking and technical curiosity to identify which AI opportunities are worth pursuing.
- Help stakeholders understand what teams are building why it matters and how it improves real business outcomes.
- Apply Agile Scrum practices with the right level of structure for each team avoiding unnecessary process overhead.
- Facilitate team and cross-team conversations when needed to improve clarity remove blockers resolve dependencies and increase delivery effectiveness.
- Raise the quality of product ownership and Agile delivery practices across the teams.
- Help connect day-to-day execution to broader Enterprise AI Platform goals.
- Grow your own product leadership scope judgment and organizational influence over time.
Product ownership should not be passive backlog a fast-moving AI platform environment the strongest Senior Product Owner is actively learning validating prioritizing facilitating and helping the organization understand which AI opportunities are worth pursuing and which are not.
The national average salary range for this role is120-160k in base pay exclusive of any bonuses and base salary range represents the low and high end of the salary range for this position. Actual salary offered will vary and may be above or below the range based on various factors including but not limited to location experience performance and internal pay alignment. We do not anticipate that candidates hired will begin at the top of the range however from time to time it may occur on a case-by-case basis. Other rewards and benefits may include: 401(k) match Medical Dental Vision Paid-Time-Off etc. For more information please visit aware of employment fraud. All email communications from Ascensus or its hiring managers originate from @ or @ email addresses. We will never ask you for payment or require you to purchase any equipment. If you are suspicious or unsure about validity of a job posting we strongly encourage you to apply directly through our website.
Required Experience:
Senior IC
About Company
Everyone deserves to feel financially secure. We help more people save through partnerships with leading financial institutions and state governments.