Product Owner, IT

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Royal Caribbean Group’s IT has an exciting career opportunity for a full time Product Owner, IT reporting to the Senior Manager, software engineering  
 

This position will work on-site in Miramar, Florida. 
 

Position Summary:

We are seeking a dynamic and experienced Loyalty Technology Product Owner to join our team. The ideal candidate will be responsible for managing and enhancing our loyalty programs, ensuring they align with our business objectives and deliver exceptional value to our customers. The Loyalty Product Owner will work closely with cross-functional teams, including marketing, data analytics, and customer service, to develop and implement strategies that drive customer engagement and loyalty.

The Product Owner is responsible for working with senior management to set strategy, vision and roadmap of Loyalty Applications assuring alignment with business goals and objectives.  You are responsible for creating and maintaining a product backlog, prioritizing, driving completion of MVPs, and evaluating the delivery by the agile team(s) to ensure impeccable features and functionality.  You are the owner for at least one critical software product and/or project from inception through to delivery in close collaboration with various roles from Delivery, Product, Engineering, Architecture, Infrastructure and Security.  The role supports creation of all product owner deliverables to assure alignment with best practices/principles and company technology vision. The Product Owner is viewed by others as a subject matter expert in his/her product field, and a role model of corporate culture.  The role requires strong interpersonal and teamwork skills.  The Product Owner reports to a product manager.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Work with the product manager to understand customer expectations, requirements and business values for platform features.
• Develop a feature-based roadmap, objectives and milestones with involvement from all relevant stakeholders (internal and external) to ensure technical feasibility and alignment with the product technology roadmap.
• Coordinate communications between the scrum team and stakeholders. Conduct milestone demonstrations with stakeholders.
• Write epics and user stories with acceptance criteria for the scrum team backlog.
• Write user stories with sufficient details for the scrum team to size the effort.
• Drive definition of the Minimal Viable Product (MVP) based on business and strategic measures.
• Manage scope, groom and prioritize one or two team backlogs on a regular basis.
• Provide guidance to the scrum team during sprint planning.  Verify accurate documentation and communication of product/application decisions and strategies.
• Review and accept or reject user story completion based on acceptance criteria.
• Identify, address, track and manage risks, and escalate when necessary, in collaboration with the Delivery Lead. Work with program and engineering managers to communicate project statuses and risks.
• Identify and manage cross team dependencies to prevent impediments and foster collaboration.
• Leverage JIRA, Confluence, and other tools to provide metrics and reports for sprint and project management.
• Lead, coach and mentor other product analysts and promote a culture of innovation.
• Remain current with business industry and operational trends in order to advise and advocate solution approaches for systems and applications to meet growing business needs.
• Perform other duties as required.  This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by the employee occupying this position.  Employees will be required to perform any other job-related duties assigned by their supervisor or management.

Qualifications, Knowledge and Skills:
 

• Responsible for all resources, including financial implications and cost of systems/services for specific products and technology solutions, during development. This includes making decisions based on the best return on investment (ROI) and understanding the cost and benefit when prioritizing the backlog.
• Solid understanding of accounting rules for product capital and expense activities.
• Defines optimization opportunities to manage cost and ensure technology expenditures align with business objectives.
• Tracks effort hours by activity in time management tool.

• Requires a Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Information Technology or any related discipline.
• 5+ years of work experience as a Product Owner in Software Engineering / Information Technology or related area.
• Proven ability to lead, facilitate, coach, mentor and communicate effectively in both an interpersonal and/or group setting.
• Strong understanding of agile methodologies and product management practices.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams.
• Analytical mindset with the ability to interpret data and make data-driven decisions.
• Proficiency in product management tools and software (e.g., JIRA, Confluence).
• Passion for creating exceptional customer experiences and driving customer loyalty.
• Experience in the travel, hospitality, or retail industry.
• Knowledge of CRM systems and loyalty platforms.

Competencies:

Demonstrates extensive proficiency, experience, and understanding of the core competencies outlined below:

Customer Empathy

• Fosters strong guest relationships via delivery on commitments, open communication, and on-going feedback/improvement.
• Facilitates creation of the 'right' products and services to resolve guest business issues with mind maps and user stories.
• Communicates and models the criticality of guest focus as an organizational strategy.
• Measures and observes guest satisfaction levels to ascertain and implement service improvement alternatives.
• Anticipates guest needs, focusing efforts to proactively meet needs and exceed guest expectations.
• Advises others on creating guest focused environments in various scenarios.

Product Health

• Manages reliability improvement projects and defines success criteria.
• Develops performance detractors and criteria to assess and recommend product improvements.
• Consults on the implementation of accelerated testing methods.
• Monitors the operation of product processes and procedures.
• Analyzes and optimizes processes to improve hardware reliability during the production phase.
• Advises others on the selection of tools and approaches for testing the reliability of mechanical and electronic components.
   

Software Product Management

• Has experience with multiple products or multiple releases of a critical product.
• Gathers, summarizes and prioritizes ideas for new products, or new versions of existing products.
• Describes the purpose of and a methodology for a product usability analysis.
• Participates in defining, estimating and pricing special enhancement requests.
• Manages conflicts between business units, sales, marketing, and engineering teams.
• Monitors, assesses, and communicates opinion of external analysts and professional media.

Software Product Business Knowledge

• Participates in enhancing the sales process and expanding sales opportunities.
• Relates experiences with unusual or non-traditional uses; assesses opportunities and challenges.
• Has knowledge of all advanced business features and functions of the product.
• Supports and participates in major installations and customizations.
• Maintains and disseminates information on customer use and experiences.
• Collects, documents, and maintains product functional requirements; makes recommendations.

Software Product Installation and Support

• Defines and manages the fulfillment of plans for integration with other products and platforms.
• Estimates time and resources for initial installation and on-going support.
• Fulfills a wide range customer-specific installation and configuration needs.
• Analyzes new releases and data conversion needs to determine impact on installed base.
• Influences the development and tools for product installation and support.
• Manages or carries out installation and support services for multiple products/environments.

We know there's a lot to consider. As you go through the application process, our recruiters will be glad to provide guidance, and more relevant details to answer any additional questions. Thank you again for your interest in Royal Caribbean Group. We'll hope to see you onboard soon!
 

It is the policy of the Company to ensure equal employment and promotion opportunity to qualified candidates without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, sexuality, gender identity or expression, marital status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Royal Caribbean Group and each of its subsidiaries prohibit and will not tolerate discrimination or harassment.
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