Product Owner – Programmability and Automationat CDW Careers

The Product Owner position involves being responsible for leading the activities surrounding the business analysis, product development, product management, and success of a tools portfolio while maintaining a high standard of quality and team leadership. The Product Owner is responsible for working with partner teams, as well as Internal Strategy, Customer Experience, Sales, Delivery, Development, and Marketing teams to own, manage, and grow a suite of products and services that have an impact on CDW’s ability to deliver services that leverage programmability and automation capabilities. This position is key in defining and executing on product vision for owned products as well as the strategy to achieve it. 

Key Areas of Responsibility

• Manage the lifecycle of products/tools in the identified area of focus from idea selection and prioritization through to service creation, updates, and retirement as needed, driving for profitability, quality, and consistency.
• Build effective relationships between functional departments to ensure business alignment including but not limited to all services teams, marketing, Partner management, and sales.

Develop A Product Strategy

• Develop and drive strategy and roadmap for the identified area of focus, taking into consideration business objectives, identified needs, and resource constraints. Work collaboratively with stakeholders and others in the Product Development team to develop this strategy into an achievable roadmap that delivers on business goals.
• Envisioning, articulating and prioritizing a long-term strategy.
• Clearly communicating strategy and goals to project teams and ensuring delivery against them.
• Gather information on needs then work with teams to validate product ideas and evaluate opportunities.
• Release Management – determine release schedule and ongoing management of tooling to incorporate and communicate new features and functionality. Develop performance, forecasting, and ROI around the tools.
• Report on the performance of the tools in the owned roadmap
• Be the subject matter expert on owned product area and associated programs. These will all be programmability and automation focused solutions relating to how CDW uses and grows capabilities in this space.

Drive tool development

• Lead and manage cross-functional collaboration for the development of new tools or features.
• Create clear product documentation such as user stories, wireframes, process flows, and/or requirements where applicable.
• Ability to take a product from MVP to controlled release and to full launch.
• Full understanding of the owned product lines to be able to communicate value, outcomes, and impact for products that are owned.
• Maintain the portfolio including analysis of performance of existing products. Update and remediate or retire tools or features based on performance and needs. Ensure clear and continuous feedback loops exist.
• Develop and maintain collateral and training related to tool and feature creation as it relates to their portfolio.
• Prioritization and management for owned product lines.

Go to Market

• Enable various cross functional teams through availability of sales trainings and assets.
• Measure effectiveness of enablement activities

National travel up to 20% of the time

Education and/or Experience Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent experience
• 3-5+ years’ experience in Services/Software Product Management

Other Required Qualifications

• Experience with software development tools such as Git, CI/CD, Docker, etc.
• Experience working with software development teams.
• Experience with programming language such as Python, JavaScript, ASP.net, etc.
• Knowledge of Agile methodologies.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to effectively communicate at all levels of the company including Senior Leadership.
• Demonstrated ability to analyze data and use it to make informed decisions.
• Ability to multitask and be adaptable in a fast-changing environment.
• Strong understanding of the dynamics of cross-functional teams, with the ability to creatively problem solve and drive alignment in the absence of direct reporting relationships.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently with little direction.
• Experience managing multiple product lines or a portfolio of related products.
• Experience creating artifacts such as wireframes, user stories, functional requirements and business requirements for products and features.

Preferred Qualification

• MBA
• Two+ years of business analysis experience
• Ability to evaluate opportunities and drive priorities with a clear focus on business priorities.
• Comfortable with prioritizing the work of a software development team.
• Experience with and certifications in Pragmatic framework.