Product Owner (Remote - California)

Who We AreJoin 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 ten 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 DoWe are seeking a dedicated Product Owner to serve as the voice of the client and develop and maintain a product roadmap based on strategic goals and product vision. The Product Owner will manage the product backlog, prioritize features, interact with stakeholders, and ensure alignment with enterprise OKRs. The ideal candidate has strong problem-solving skills, excellent communication abilities, and a deep understanding of market trends.

What You'll Do:

Product Roadmap and Backlog Management:

• Create, maintain, and prioritize the product backlog (features and stories) from the product roadmap and strategic portfolio backlog
• Understand and communicate the business direction and vision to the team
• Ensure wireframes, prototypes, or workflows are created and signed off by stakeholders before any work is done by the development team or vendor

Stakeholder Interaction:

• Regularly interact with stakeholders to understand business value and prioritize work that delivers value to the customer
• Understand enterprise OKRs and ensure features align with them

Vendor Management:

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

Agile and SAFe Alignment:

• Regularly communicate with the product manager to ensure the product roadmap aligns with business goals
• Collaborate with the product manager to ensure product features and enablers support strategic business goals
• Prioritize the product backlog to align with enterprise priorities
• Ensure sprint goals are set and communicated to the team before the sprint starts
• Properly decompose features into user stories through story mapping
• Maintain the product backlog with at least two sprints-worth of well-written, prioritized, and refined stories

Product Team Leadership:

• Represent the product team to business owners, clients, and end users (i.e., stakeholders)
• Work with analysts and other product team members to build subject matter expertise of the overall product
• Lead the team in taking ownership of all aspects of the product
• Write well-defined product user stories with clear and testable acceptance criteria
• Groom the product backlog and refine user stories to communicate value, readying for the upcoming Program Increment
• Own the end-to-end release of new features from ideation through testing, acceptance, release, and validation
• Ensure product documentation, release notes, support guides, and user guides are created and maintained

Professional Conduct:

• Perform duties outside of normal business hours depending on business needs
• Work with the product team to ensure change management and incident management processes are followed
• Ensure product vulnerabilities are remediated based on age and criticality of the vulnerability

What You'll Bring:

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical discipline, business, or a related field
• 4+ years of experience as a product owner in a fast-paced environment
• Commercial Banking industry experience with working knowledge of banking application preferred
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate technical issues to nontechnical and technical audiences
• Outstanding presentation, communication, and information-sharing skills
• Strong problem-solving skills
• Working experience with common product management tools, such as Jira
• Industry certifications: Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager (POPM), or Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO) are 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 influence others and get support for recommendations and priorities
• Creative thinking with good interpersonal skills and relationship building with team members
• Ability to work with cross-functional teams to deliver a common goal

The pay range for this role is $109,700 - $146,200 annually

 

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 OfferBy 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.

First American will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with arrest or conviction records, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws (e.g., the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act).

First American intends to conduct a review of an applicant’s criminal history in connection with a conditional offer. First American reasonably believes that a criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following material job duties for this position potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment: handling of confidential, proprietary or trade secret information belonging to First American or its customers, administrating or facilitating financial transactions, and the ability to meet customer-imposed criminal history requirements.

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.