National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
Position Description
TITLE: Technical Product Owner, Product Management Office (100% Remote)
LOCATION: HQ (Remote)
DATE PREPARED: March 2025
FLSA: Exempt
DIVISION: Technology
DEPARTMENT: Software Engineering

GENERAL DESCRIPTION:

The Technical Product Owner (TPO) role is pivotal in bridging the gap between business objectives and technological solutions across NCMEC. The TPO position demands a comprehensive understanding of both the technical and business facets of a product. The TPO utilizes their technical expertise to connect the technical development team with the business objectives in software product development. Additionally, the TPO manages the technical aspects of the product and serves as a key intermediary between technical teams and business stakeholders. This role requires a combination of technical knowledge and product vision to ensure products align with business goals and meet technical specifications. TPOs are responsible for converting business requirements into technical solutions, supporting development teams, and prioritizing features that provide significant value.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES

• The ability to analyze complex technical situations, identify potential challenges, and determine practical solutions is crucial.
• Proven experience working in Agile methodology and frameworks such as Scrum, Kanban, andSAFe®
• Proficiency in tools like JIRA and Confluence
• The TPO role involves working in a dynamic and demanding environment, adapting to shifting priorities and navigating new challenges is essential
• Excellent organizational and time management skills
• Outstanding communication, presentation and leadership skills
• Experience driving continuous improvement; challenge the status quo and proactively identify gaps and opportunities.
• Excellent oral and written communications skills and experience interacting with both business and IT individuals at all levels.
• In-depth knowledge and understanding of business needs with the ability to establish/maintain high level of customer trust and confidence.
• Collaborative in nature, utilizing exceptional listening and facilitation skills to build effective teams, drive effective outcomes and develop innovative solutions that meet the needs of multiple stakeholders.
• Empathy and user-centric mindset - understanding user needs, pain points, and behaviors is vital to creating products that provide value and deliver positive customer experience.

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:Preferred:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems or related technical field
• Ability to collaborate closely with the technical implementation team, functional stakeholders, end users, and various functional leads on developing and configuring system functionality
• Experience in implementation of Agile and Scaled Agile (SAFe®) Framework methodologies and techniques
• Strong Technical experience with the ability to understand and discuss software development concepts
• 3+ years working knowledge of programming languages such as Java, Python, or SQL (prior developer experience preferred)
• Sharp analytical and critical thinking skills
• Strong knowledge of application architecture
• Experience with developing or managing headless, distributed systems using microservices and event-driven architectures
• Proven track record of delivering data driven solutions with a customer-first mindset
• Established background in launching software or services in partnership with engineering teams and high degree of proficiency in prototyping and iterative developmen

• Prioritize and manage the portfolio, program, and product backlog, ensuring that the team is working on the most valuable features and enhancements.
• Must have the ability to communicate effectively with various stakeholders, such as engineering teams, designers, and executives, to articulate the product vision, gather product requirements, understand customer needs, and convey complex technical concepts clearly and concisely.
• Collaborate during sprint ceremony sessions, defining clear and achievable goals for each iteration and ensuring the team has a well-defined backlog.
• Author detailed epics, user stories and acceptance criteria, ensuring that features are well-defined and understood by the development team.
• Drive continuous improvement within the team by identifying and implementing process enhancements and best practices.
• Leverage technical expertise to make informed decisions and provide valuable insights during product development; ensuring technical requirements are clear, aligned, testable, accurate, and maintained.
• Contribute, support, and implement best practices around software engineering and technical debt management.
• Fulfill the role of the Agile Scrum Product Owner within the development team.
• Proactively engage all stakeholders including development teams, testing, security, architecture, service delivery, operations departments to elicit and document clear business, functional and non-functional requirements.
• Undertake analysis, diagnostic and facilitation activities to identify and assess the requirement interviews, workshops, data collection.
• Coordinate with development teams to determine appropriate solutions to meet the requirements and size the solutions for release planning purposes.
• Participate in internal backlog refinement sessions to prepare business epics and stories for technical breakdown and planning, ensuring all requirements are well understood by the operational and product development teams

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:Preferred:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems or related technical field
• Ability to collaborate closely with the technical implementation team, functional stakeholders, end users, and various functional leads on developing and configuring system functionality
• Experience in implementation of Agile and Scaled Agile (SAFe®) Framework methodologies and techniques
• Strong Technical experience with the ability to understand and discuss software development concepts
• 3+ years working knowledge of programming languages such as Java, Python, or SQL (prior developer experience preferred)
• Sharp analytical and critical thinking skills
• Strong knowledge of application architecture
• Experience with developing or managing headless, distributed systems using microservices and event-driven architectures
• Proven track record of delivering data driven solutions with a customer-first mindset
• Established background in launching software or services in partnership with engineering teams and high degree of proficiency in prototyping and iterative development