IT Product Owner - Costco Travel

at  Costco Wholesale

Costco Travel IT is responsible for the technical future of Costco Wholesale, the third largest retailer in the world with wholesale operations in fourteen countries. Despite our size and explosive international expansion, we continue to provide a family, employee centric atmosphere in which our employees thrive and succeed. As proof, Costco ranks eighth in Forbes “World’s Best Employers”.
This is an environment unlike anything in the high-tech world and the secret of Costco’s success is its culture. The value Costco puts on its employees is well documented in articles from a variety of publishers including Bloomberg and Forbes. Our employees and our members come FIRST. Costco is well known for its generosity and community service and has won many awards for its philanthropy. The company joins with its employees to take an active role in volunteering by sponsoring many opportunities to help others.
Come join the Costco Travel IT family. Costco Travel IT is a dynamic, fast-paced environment, working through exciting transformation efforts. We are building the next generation retail environment where you will be surrounded by dedicated and highly professional employees.
Product Owners are responsible for defining requirements, assisting with the overall product roadmap/vision, and driving value at the scrum team level. Product Owners work closely with teams and are the “voice of the customer”, ensuring the needs of the end-user are incorporated into the product from design to deployment. Product owners are responsible for the authoring of functional user stories which are used to support the day to day development of new features and capabilities.
The Product Owner partners with Product Management Leads and stakeholders to translate product strategy and problem solving into a detailed, prioritized backlog of user stories. The Product Owner collaborates with an agile delivery team to implement, measure, and learn from the improvements they have made. The Product Owner manages execution of the value stream product features and delivery roadmap for Costco Travel that are aligned to KPI’s that integrate both internal and external stakeholder requirements.
The Product Owner also serves as the scrum master for their delivery team by enabling the team to self-organize, removing impediments, and fostering an environment for high-performing team dynamics, continuous flow, and continuous improvement.
If you want to be a part of one of the worldwide BEST companies “to work for”, simply apply and let your career be reimagined.

• Defines and communicates the minimum viable product (MVP) for a given application/product and the supporting release plans.
• Collaborates with Product Managers and technology stakeholders (e.g., Systems Architects) to define new and or enhanced product requirements and functionality.
• Collaborates with Product Managers to support the prioritization of feature enablers defined by architects within the product roadmap.
• Works continuously daily with teams to provide answers, feedback, and direction on work items, enablers, and user stories.
• Consults Product Managers for guidance and clarity on the product vision, roadmap, and requirements.
• Collaborates with Scrum Masters to ensure the work managed by teams, achieves the highest value relative to needs priority of the business.
• Collaborates with Scrum Masters and teams to define the sprint plan based on the priority outlined within the overall product vision and roadmap.
• Prioritizes the sprint backlog (as part of the sprint planning ceremony) based on the sequencing and ranking of features defined in the product roadmap.
• Refines product requirements based on the input obtained through sprint showcases and demos.
• Creates and authors user stories with detailed acceptance criteria written in the customers’ voice.
• Collaborates with the team to prepare the estimates for the user stories within the product backlog.
• Conducts the formal review and acceptance of user stories implemented by a team within a sprint.
• Drives the execution of user acceptance testing (UAT) activities with support from business and technology team members.
• Supports and participates in program level ceremonies including product increment (PI) planning sessions with input and consultation from the Product Manager.
• Performs functional reviews as part of sprint demos and showcases along with the Product Manager and Delivery Manager.
• Supports business strategy by forming a backlog of features and user stories for use by the delivery team.
• Articulates requirements for each user story with detailed acceptance criteria.
• Effectively uses data and insights from multiple sources that benefits the business and our members.
• Pursues incremental delivery by looking for ways to meet business goals and learn from members and end users through frequent, measurable enhancements.
• Works collaboratively and uses best practices with the delivery team to support backlog refinement, sprint planning, and long-term release planning.
• Monitors and improves product health.
• Ensures completed stories meet acceptance criteria by reviewing test plans, the output of automated testing or, where necessary, contributing to manual testing efforts.
• Prioritizes and collaborates in resolution of issues and defects.
• Seeks and improves processes across the entire product team.
• Seeks and improves processes across the delivery team by using retrospectives to inspect and adapt.
• Communicates technical information to team members, stakeholders, and all levels of management effectively.
• Provides direction, mentorship, and coaching to junior Product Owners.
• Stays current with product management and lean-agile best practices.