Product Owner, Banking Services

Who We Are

Join a team that puts its People First! As a member of the First American family of companies, First American Trust is a federal savings bank that has provided banking, wealth management, and trust solutions on a national, full-service basis for more than five decades. Since 1889, First American (NYSE: FAF) has held an unwavering belief in its people. They are passionate about what they do, and we are equally passionate about fostering an environment where all feel welcome, supported, and empowered to be innovative and reach their full potential. Our inclusive, people-first culture has earned our company numerous accolades, including being named to the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® list for eight consecutive years. We have also earned awards as a best place to work for women, diversity and LGBTQ+ employees, and have been included on more than 50 regional best places to work lists. First American will always strive to be a great place to work, for all. For more information, please visit www.careers.firstam.com.

What We Do

First American Trust IT Solutions is seeking a Certified Product Owner with 2-3 years of product owner experience to join our growing team, one who is passionate about Agile, possesses an Agile mindset and understands the significant role a Product Owner has in maximizing client value. The Product Owner will partner with product management, business owners, clients, and other stakeholders to define and transform ideas into product features and user stories with deliverable acceptance criteria.

The ideal candidate is driven by results and possesses strong interpersonal skills and a positive attitude. The candidate is also comfortable leading and actively participating on cross-functional matrixed teams. To be successful, the candidate must have extensive experience and possess strong functional knowledge of many aspects of core banking, digital banking, and wire and ACH payment processing in addition to supporting vendor applications.

The role requires strong knowledge of Agile methodology and bank processes in order to prioritize competing user stories and clearly maintain a consistent vision for the product team.  In addition, the candidate must posses strong organizational, planning and collaboration skills with a consistent track record for on-time delivery of commitments.

What You’ll Do

Serve as the voice of the client; develop and maintain agreed upon product roadmap based upon strategic goals, product vision and vendor releases:

• Create, maintain and prioritize product backlog (features and stories) from the product roadmap and strategic portfolio backlog, required system integrations, and problem management discoveries
• Partner with business owners, external clients, product manager and product team, aligning product capabilities to business goals (creating value)

Accountable for assigned vendor applications’ SLAs, their overall performance and timely incident resolution

Utilize experience in vendor provided digital banking applications, monitor releases and application updates:

• Monitor vendor’s application release calendar, adding updates/upgrades to product roadmap
• Review release notes for impacts, enhancements, bug fixes and potentially new usable product capabilities
• Communicate any impacts to product owner peers, obtaining alignment and commitment to releases
• Communicate new vendor application capabilities and bug fixes that benefit the business and or external clients

Own product(s) release delivery and communicate impacts to and support from business owners:

• Gain commitment to support upgrade/update from business owners (uat, change management, etc.)
• Sprint planning of vendor update/upgrade work items with product teams and vendors
• Align, continuously engage, guide and gain commitment, ensuring expedient issue resolution and delivery by the product team and other product owner’s product teams
• Communicate success and execution progress against the sprint plan and target release date

• Consult the business, utilizing system design thinking in envisioning solutions via vendor’s application’s capabilities and in-house custom applications
• Act as the product’s ambassador internally, being the primary point of contact for the entire solution’s ecosystem

Fulfill product team leadership:

• Represent the product team to the business owners, clients and the ultimate end users (i.e., stakeholders)
• Write well-defined product features and user stories with clear and testable acceptance criteria
• Groom product backlog, refining user stories to communicate value, readying for upcoming 5-6 iterations/sprints
• Communicate product priorities and gain alignment with and commitment to delivery from product team

What You’ll Bring

Self-starter with the ability to grow the business acumen and, learn new applications and their capabilities

Able to collaborate, lead and exercise influence without authority

Work within cross-functional teams and across multiple product teams to deliver on a common goal

Able to understand business problems and work to solve them with vendor applications and other technology

Possess a proven Product Owner track record, applying Scrum principles and practices in a product-centric organization

Experienced in Scrum and knowledgeable of other Agile methodologies (Lean, SAFe – Scaled Agile)

Excellent written and verbal communication skills, able to communicate technical issues to nontechnical audiences

Excellent interpersonal skills, able interact effectively with others, including all levels of management

Exceptionally analytical, process-oriented, and evaluative with troubleshooting abilities

Candidate must possess:

• Bachelor of Science degree in a technical discipline, business or related field
• 2 to 4 years of experience as a product owner on a scrum team in a fast-paced scaling environment
• Experience working with industry leading online banking system is a must
• Outstanding presentation, communication and information sharing skills
• Working experience with common product management tools, such as Jira, Trello or Azure DevOps
• Industry Certification: Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager (POPM) or Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO) is highly desired
• Experience stepping into new and unfamiliar markets and business environments and learning to identify and translate the requirements of those environments into a coherent product vision
• Ability to individually influence those around them and garner support for recommendations and priorities
• Creative thinker with good interpersonal skills and developing a relationship with team members
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with ability to communicate technical issues to nontechnical and technical audiences

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Pay Range: $121,000-$135,000

This hiring range is a reasonable estimate of the base pay range for this position at the time of posting.  Pay is based on a number of factors which may include job-related knowledge, skills, experience, business requirements and geographic location

What We Offer

By choice, we don’t simply accept individuality – we embrace it, we support it, and we thrive on it! Our People First Culture celebrates diversity, equity and inclusion not simply because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it’s the key to our success. We are proud to foster an authentic and inclusive workplace For All. You are free and encouraged to bring your entire, unique self to work. First American is an equal opportunity employer in every sense of the term.

Based on eligibility, First American offers a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, 401k, PTO/paid sick leave and other great benefits like an employee stock purchase plan.