Overview
SDG&E is an innovative San Diego-based energy company that provides clean, safe and reliable energy to better the lives of the people it serves in San Diego and southern Orange counties. The company is committed to creating a sustainable future by providing its electricity from renewable sources; modernizing natural gas pipelines; accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles; supporting numerous non-profit partners; and, investing in innovative technologies to ensure the reliable operation of the region’s infrastructure for generations to come. SDG&E is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE).
Our highly trained and responsive employees with their diverse skills, talents and ideas are the reason we can deliver on our commitment and are building America’s best energy company. They are also the reason why we have been recognized with the industry’s most coveted awards. Our employees undertake challenging work and receive highly competitive compensation and benefits. As one of the region’s largest employers, we’re always searching for talented and bright people to join our team. After all, it takes the best to build the best. Learn more about benefits HERE.
Diversity and inclusion are core values of SDG&E. Empowering our employees to be their whole selves at work is our competitive advantage. This is where new ideas come from and meaningful collaboration gets an authentic start. By bringing together people with different perspectives, diverse backgrounds and real commitment to their own individuality, we have built a stronger business. Learn more about our commitment to diversity and inclusion HERE.
For more information, visit SDGEnews.com or connect with SDG&E on Twitter (@SDGE), Instagram (@SDGE) and Facebook.
Primary Purpose
The Senior Product Owner is a member of an agile team, primarily responsible for defining user stories [i.e., a short description of a unit of work to be delivered within an agile sprint, detailing the desired system or software functionality written in the user’s language] and prioritizing the backlog of user stories based on value for the customer. Interacts frequently with customers to draft objectives and strategies and drive innovation through products or services.
As the face of the delivery team, navigates increasingly complex IT and Business environments with more cross-team or external dependencies [i.e., reliance and interrelatedness with other systems, applications, platforms, and workstreams which result in a more challenging product to manage due to the additional risk], including people, process and technology, and stakeholder interests. Ensures the agile team is working on the right things at the right time, defining the roadmap for their team. Maximizes business value within a product or capability, ensuring the team focuses on a mix of net new development, improvement, support, and innovation.
Duties and Responsibilities
– Captures and documents user stories to inform priority and sprint planning, to determine which team will work on a sprint and increase the shared understanding and commitment of sprint items. As the owner of a more complex product, may capture stories from multiple stakeholders, and take in stories from other teams. Defines stories and features, technical service or solution that fulfills a stakeholder need, according to quality standards for clarity. Acts as a trusted advisor and liaison between team and multiple stakeholders and clients. Proactively aligns with business partners to understand business value resulting in a clear sprint plan and priority. Collaborates across product teams to ensure that cross-team dependencies are understood and managed. Communicates value of complex stories to scrum team and ensures user stories are well-formed with clear acceptance criteria. Manages team sprint plan and a healthy backlog, a list of prioritized work that is well defined and ready to be delivered within a two-week sprint.
– Maintains a healthy backlog of work for the team, focusing on business value. Engages with business stakeholders to understand their needs. Drives prioritization of work items to focus on business value delivered, balancing net new development opportunities against innovation, improvement and product support. Understands and communicates value of the user stories. Drives demos and creates feedback loops between team and their stakeholders/clients. Provides feedback to team on the work completed. Reviews and accepts user stories and features as completed, ensuring that they have met all acceptance criteria and end user needs.
– Defines and communicates team roadmap and vision for a 3-6 month time horizon. Manages complex business needs, relationships, and more complex products, with full authority. Identifies and qualifies potential opportunities with business clients for team’s backlog, focusing on quarterly planning. Ensures that value delivered is measurable. Drives communication of product’s roadmap with an eye towards continuous innovation and improvement. Proactively champions new delivery opportunities.
– Prepares for and participates in agile ceremonies. Writes features [i.e., a grouping of work defined in an agile way and made up of individual units of work that can be performed within a two-week sprint] and creates a quarterly plan for a more complex product or capability. Partners with other Product Owners to plan around dependencies and resolve impediments. Participates in planning activities across the enterprise, including group-level planning activities that involve the work of multiple agile teams, such as quarterly planning or program increment (PI) planning. Participates in group events to review outputs and progress across teams.
– Performs other duties as assigned (no more than 5% of duties).
Qualifications
Required Qualifications
– Bachelor’s Degree Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering, Business Administration, related field or equivalent training and/or experience.
– 5 years – Related work experience in Project or Product Delivery, Product Management, IT and/or Business Operations or equivalent experience.
– Stakeholder Management – Ability to create and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders (including clients) in order to drive outcomes and create alignment around a vision or course of action.
– Adaptability and Learning Agility – Ability to learn, adapt, unlearn, and relearn to rapidly adapt to changing business needs, processes, standards, and tools; a strong ability to prioritize and reprioritize work.
– Product Management – Strong product management skills, including an ability to communicate and inspire product vision, strategy and roadmap, apply unique business insights, prioritize work to be completed, and make sound decisions aligned to business goals.
– Value Realization – Strong ability to identify the benefits provided by a proposed user story or feature relative to the effort that it will require from the team in order to drive the effective prioritization of work to maximize the benefits delivered by the team to the customer.
– Must reside in Southern California or be willing to relocate upon hire.
– We offer a hybrid work environment. Although the schedule may vary, typically this will allow you to work from the office two to three days per week and work remotely on the remaining workdays.
Preferred Qualifications
– 1 year – Experience working in the energy sector or with a utility.
– Agile Scrum, Product Owner or Scrum Master certifications such as Certified Product Owner Certification or Certified Scrum Master Certification.
– User Experience – Strong understanding of how users will interact with systems, applications, and products, with an ability to design applications and interfaces that are consumable and easy to navigate.
– Automation and Security Concepts – Knowledge of Automation and Security Concepts (e.g., test automation, code coverage, DevSecOps, CI/CD pipelines, etc.).
– Agile Tools – Knowledge of Agile Tools, such as Azure, Jira, etc.
– Agile Methodologies – Knowledge of concepts, including Agile Scrum and/or Kanban, and application of Agile methodology (e.g., Lean, SAFe, LeSS) for project management to be able to design, implement and manage projects.
May require work outside of normal business hours and/or 24/7 response availability for system and application maintenance, enhancements, production releases and/or operational emergencies.
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, citizenship, disability or protected veteran status.
Work Schedule
HYBRID: Work a combination of onsite and remote days each week, typically 2-3 days per week.
Salary Range
$106,300.00 – $159,500.00
Total Rewards Philosophy
Note: SDG&E strives to ensure that employees are paid equitably and competitively. Starting salaries may vary based on factors such as relevant experience, qualifications, and education.
SDG&E offers a competitive total rewards package that goes beyond base salary. This position is eligible for an annual performance-based incentive (bonus) as well as other merit-based recognition. Company benefits include health and welfare (medical, dental, vision), employer contributions to retirement benefits, life insurance, paid time off, as well as other company offerings such as tuition reimbursement, paid parental leave, and employee assistance programs.