Product Owner for Digital Accessibility

at  USC

PRODUCT OWNER OF ACCESSIBILITY

The University of Southern California’s Information Technology Services (ITS) seeks a skilled Product Owner of Accessibility who demonstrates an outstanding commitment to service excellence to join our Product Strategy and Design Experience team. In this role, you will collaborate with a diverse group of professionals to address complex information technology challenges, enhance customer experiences, and deliver value to campus stakeholders across USC.

THE TEAM

ITS has embarked on a major digital transformation initiative to continually improve services for faculty, staff, and students in support of USC’s ascent as a leading institution of higher education. The ITS vision aligns strategy, business, and services, affirms ITS cultural values, empowers cross-functional teamwork, embraces world-class best practices, and promotes innovation, excellence, agility, and efficiency. To achieve this vision, ITS is committed to providing a modern technology infrastructure that is resilient and delivers the performance necessary to meet the demands of a growing customer base, training in the latest technologies for its highly productive and motivated workforce, outstanding customer experience, and technology services that are aligned with the university’s mission to provide exceptional learning opportunities for students. ITS is creating a workplace where employees can develop cutting-edge skills, take pride in the services they provide, and have access to the roles and career paths that align to their abilities and potential.
We are looking for top talent to join us on our journey.

ABOUT USC

USC is the leading private research university in Los Angeles—a global center for arts, technology, and international business. With more than 47,500 students, we are located primarily in Los Angeles but also in various US and global satellite locations. As the largest private employer in Los Angeles, responsible for $8 billion annually in economic activity in the region, we offer the opportunity to work in a dynamic and diverse environment in careers that span a broad spectrum of talents and skills across a variety of academic and professional schools and administrative units. As a USC employee and member of the Trojan Family—the faculty, staff, students, and alumni who make USC a great place to work—you will enjoy excellent benefits, including various well-being programs designed to help individuals achieve work-life balance.
Come join the ITS team and work as a trusted partner in shaping the university’s environment of innovation and excellence.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

The candidate for the position of Product Owner of Accessibility must meet the following qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree
• Minimum five years in information technology, product management, product development, consulting, or another relevant role.
• Proven experience establishing strong working relationships with diverse team members and clients.
• Experience designing user-centered products that produce measurable results against documented problem statements.
• Proven record of defining and delivering end-to-end, user-centered products considering user research, market analysis, data, customer feedback, and technical opportunities and constraints.
• Experience working in project-based environments using Lean and Agile methodologies and developing and maintaining product roadmaps.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, with experience presenting technical topics to non-technical audiences.
• Experience authoring detailed functional specifications to drive effective technical solutions, with demonstrated analytical, organizational, project planning, and product strategy skills.
• Through ideas, words, and actions, the successful candidate must also demonstrate a strong commitment to USC’s Unifying Values of integrity, excellence, diversity, equity and inclusion, well-being, open communication, and accountability.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

The ideal candidate for the position of Product Owner of Accessibility has the following qualifications:

• Minimum eight years in information technology, product management, product development, consulting, or another relevant role.
• Demonstrated scrum or agile process development knowledge and direct, hands-on experience with release management teams and processes.
• Experience in higher education or product ownership.
• Experience working on digital accessibility initiatives.

Job Accountabilities

• Authors compliance and business requirements through complex, advanced analysis of products. Collaborates with stakeholders and vendors to identify and prioritize roadmap elements and build consensus on product solutions. Coordinates with business, data, and IT architects, aligning product and platform architectures and capabilities according to agreed goals for requirements.
• Collaborates with team members and management, implementing effective solutions to support the vision for ITS product strategy and design. Maintains currency with technology, standards, and best practices. Supports process improvement efforts within the team and across the ITS organization.
• Communicates vision, opportunities, and strategies to support product decision-making and measures success. Utilizes best practices regarding customer research, competitive analysis, and stakeholder goals. Maintains balance between user needs, business goals, and technical realities for diverse audiences.
• Defines product strategy, processes, and approaches to deliver a broad range of USC products. Participates in research to gain insights into user pain points, challenges, and needs and builds and provides solutions that meet new requirements and expectations.
• Supports continuous improvement, effective troubleshooting and problem-solving, utilizing the latest industry technology and knowledge. Works collaboratively with designers, researchers, developers, business analysts, and other key stakeholders to deliver engaging experiences. Develops skills and abilities continuously, maintaining currency on emerging technologies and product-strategy approaches.
• Aids in cultivating an inclusive environment and a culture of trust and transparency, sharing information broadly, openly, and deliberately. Builds and maintains collaborative relationships with diverse team members, peers, and leaders. Actively embodies ITS values and behaviors (e.g., accountability, ethics, best-in-class customer service).
• Enables the delivery team to deliver accessible new products and iterations to existing products by creating and maintaining a product accessibility backlog. Helps prioritize multiple incoming requests and audit findings against the existing product roadmap.
• Owns accessibility remediation for digital environments, products, and content by managing automated and manual testing, supporting timelines, and planning and directing activities. Translates code-level and screen reader-based digital accessibility audits into user stories and defines acceptance criteria for the product team. Remediates risks and challenges by monitoring the delivery process, identifying warning signs, and providing a decisive response.
• Conducts reviews of vendor’s Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPAT) and Accessibility Conformance Reports (ACR) for web apps and technology under development or considered for procurement

As the Product Owner of Accessibility, you work closely with the cross-functional delivery teams to prioritize delivery plans, develop acceptance criteria, and facilitate continuous improvement to ensure products meet business and user requirements and USC’s digital accessibility policies and standards.

Job Accountabilities

• Authors compliance and business requirements through complex, advanced analysis of products. Collaborates with stakeholders and vendors to identify and prioritize roadmap elements and build consensus on product solutions. Coordinates with business, data, and IT architects, aligning product and platform architectures and capabilities according to agreed goals for requirements.
• Collaborates with team members and management, implementing effective solutions to support the vision for ITS product strategy and design. Maintains currency with technology, standards, and best practices. Supports process improvement efforts within the team and across the ITS organization.
• Communicates vision, opportunities, and strategies to support product decision-making and measures success. Utilizes best practices regarding customer research, competitive analysis, and stakeholder goals. Maintains balance between user needs, business goals, and technical realities for diverse audiences.
• Defines product strategy, processes, and approaches to deliver a broad range of USC products. Participates in research to gain insights into user pain points, challenges, and needs and builds and provides solutions that meet new requirements and expectations.
• Supports continuous improvement, effective troubleshooting and problem-solving, utilizing the latest industry technology and knowledge. Works collaboratively with designers, researchers, developers, business analysts, and other key stakeholders to deliver engaging experiences. Develops skills and abilities continuously, maintaining currency on emerging technologies and product-strategy approaches.
• Aids in cultivating an inclusive environment and a culture of trust and transparency, sharing information broadly, openly, and deliberately. Builds and maintains collaborative relationships with diverse team members, peers, and leaders. Actively embodies ITS values and behaviors (e.g., accountability, ethics, best-in-class customer service).
• Enables the delivery team to deliver accessible new products and iterations to existing products by creating and maintaining a product accessibility backlog. Helps prioritize multiple incoming requests and audit findings against the existing product roadmap.
• Owns accessibility remediation for digital environments, products, and content by managing automated and manual testing, supporting timelines, and planning and directing activities. Translates code-level and screen reader-based digital accessibility audits into user stories and defines acceptance criteria for the product team. Remediates risks and challenges by monitoring the delivery process, identifying warning signs, and providing a decisive response.
• Conducts reviews of vendor’s Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPAT) and Accessibility Conformance Reports (ACR) for web apps and technology under development or considered for procurement.