Job description

About Us
Watermark is a high-growth SaaS provider of assessment software for higher education institutions worldwide. Our global organization provides educational intelligence systems that help colleges and universities gain insights into student learning so that they can improve the quality of educational programs, assess institutional effectiveness, and streamline the accreditation process. Watermark supports over 1,700 higher education institutions, including the majority of the top 200 U.S. News & World Report colleges. There is a reason we’ve won EdTech’s Overall Higher EdTech Solution of the Year!… and we’re just getting started! Our phenomenal team of people is at the heart of everything we do — join us to experience the Watermark Difference firsthand.

About the Role
The Product Owner is a remote role and is focused on working within the product delivery cycle to maximize the value we deliver based on our product vision. They work closely with the product manager and product designer to define new features and enhancements to be implemented by the development team. They follow the agile software development process and work directly with a development team ensuring delivery of value, communicating progress, and eliciting feedback. They create user stories, develop acceptance criteria, and refine the backlog all with a user centric focus. They must balance business, customer, and technical needs and ensure a clear priority is established for the development team.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop a deep understanding of the user problems being solved and the vision for the product; Communicate vision to the development team
• Support product manager in development of product vision, goals, and roadmap
• Elicit requirements from users and turn problems and needs from users into workable epics, user stories, and acceptance criteria that reflect customer value and user centered approach
• Develop and maintain clearly prioritized backlogs that maximize customer and business value, balance business/technical needs, and reflect alignment with the greater product vision, strategy, and other key priority drivers
• Collaborate effectively with product designers and engineers during initial discovery and solutioning, coordinating and driving progress and a user centered approach
• Participate in daily scrum ceremonies and conduct discovery and backlog grooming with the development team ensuring creativity and ownership of the team
• Collaborate with designers and engineers throughout the development cycle to ensure success, guiding direction and focus as they create working software and identify risks that may impede the team
• Review QA plans and perform final story acceptance, including accounting for compliance related items
• Act as the liaison between stakeholders and other teams to ensure progress is well communicated before, during, and after sprints
• Create and/or review relevant feature documentation
• Work with the development team to investigate and triage defects, including escalations, and prioritize resolution
• Gather feedback on from users pre and post release and incorporate feedback into the backlog
• Track sprint and feature adoption metrics that inform team and feature success and make informed decisions based on data to build a better product
• Other duties as assigned

Required Skills and Experience

• 1-2 years work experience in software development, implementation, or support (experience in educational domain is a plus)
• Bachelor's degree in business, computer science, or related field or equivalent work experience
• Ability to effectively prioritize and manage competing priorities
• Ability to work in a changing, dynamic environment
• Excellent communicator interpersonally, within a team, and organizationally
• Strong attention to accuracy and detail, while being results oriented
• Preferred experience working as part of the Agile software development team
• Preferred Scrum Product Owner certification

Why work with Us:

• Great pay, great benefits (flexible PTO, 401K matching, Wellness Days, flexible schedules)
• Remote, global tech company bringing innovation to the world of higher education
• A culture that promotes inclusion and belonging and emphasizes healthy work/life balance and professional development
• Conversation and connection via Slack with opportunities to share glimpses of your family, pets, weekend fun, travel, and more
• DEI sessions, monthly water coolers, and Friday Forums for learning as an org and individual growth
• Transparent leaders with an open and consistent feedback approach

At Watermark we are continually strengthening the rich diversity in our workplace — the primary reason we succeed and we’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We work together to provide an inclusive hiring experience where all qualified applicants receive equal consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, family status, marital status, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, neurodiversity, disability, age, veteran status, or any other non-merit based or legally protected grounds.

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