Sr Consultant, Data Product Owner

If you’re passionate about innovation and love working in an environment where you can constantly improve and adopt new technologies to drive business results, then Nationwide’s Information Technology team could be the place for you! At Nationwide®, “on your side” goes beyond just words. Our customers are at the center of everything we do and we’re looking for associates who are passionate about delivering extraordinary care.

**This role does not qualify for employer-sponsored work authorization. Nationwide does not participate in the Stem OPT Extension program.**

Are you looking for an opportunity to make a difference for our P&C business and possibly the enterprise?  Is a challenging position leveraging Intelligent Data & Analytics Capabilities what you are looking for?  Then this position may be for you. The Data Product Manager - Agreement is primarily responsible for setting data product strategy for the domain, defining and supporting the building of desirable, feasible, viable, and sustainable data solutions that meet stakeholder needs over time.

Key Skills

• Data analysis and query building

• Servant Leadership

• Querying data

• Problem solving

• Design thinking

• Communication

• Pricing and product acumen

• Reconciliation, Financial Controls, and Data Quality acumen

• Technical: SQL, ETL Development, Agile practices, Data Modeling techniques

Vision and Roadmap

• Creates and maintains the portfolio vision for the domain.

• Collaborates with Data Management, IT, and Business Leadership to develop the roadmap of feature delivery within the domain.

• Continuously communicates vision and roadmap to the Data Product Owners responsible for line-level execution.

• Collaborates with Solution Architects and Domain Data Governance to ensure the relevant standards and quality requirements are met within the domain.

Portfolio Management

• Manages and prioritizes the flow of work into the domain

• Ensures awareness and understanding of business-funded projects that will impact the domain including key project objectives and milestones.

• Coordinates the release and planning activities with the Delivery Leader, the Agile Leader, the Technical Lead and other key cross-domain resources.

• Supports the flow of work to the agile teams, working with the Agile Leader and Data Product Owners within the domain to ensure the work is well defined, visualized, sized appropriately and that there is a continuous flow of work to the teams (i.e. Scope Mapping).

• Guides the work through incremental deliveries across multiple agile teams and coordinates User Acceptance Testing with identified stakeholders.

• Collaborates with Solution Architects to understand technology decisions that will enable the work being executed within the domain to ensure alignment of the sequencing of features.

Stakeholder Management

• Identifies all current and future stakeholders for the domain.

• Connects key deliverables to stakeholder needs, and multiple stakeholders to key deliverables (build once, use twice).

• Supports the customer experience (primary responsibility of the data product owner) to ensure continuous improvement of the domain related to its ability to support desired business outcomes and achieve business value.

• Evaluate tactical solutions proposed within the domain against strategic objectives as presented in the vision and roadmap. Tactical solutions should be balanced to maximize business value and minimize technical debt.

Previous experience using Jira (or similar tool) and SAFe certification are highly desired.

Compensation Grade H5

Job Description Summary

Nationwide’s industry leading workforce is passionate about creating data solutions that are secure, reliable and efficient in support of our mission to provide extraordinary care. Nationwide embraces an agile work environment and collaborative culture through the understanding of business processes, relationship entities and requirements using data analysis, quality, visualization, governance, engineering, robotic process automation, and machine learning to produce targeted data solutions. If you have the drive and desire to be part of a future forward data enabled culture, we want to hear from you.

As a Data Product Owner, you’ll be the data-related voice of the customer within a Technology development line and serve as the primary liaison between the business and Technology. You’ll be responsible for creating and maintaining the vision and value for the data product. You’ll continually re-prioritize backlog of defects and new development requests for the line(s) that support their data products, working with Technology leadership to influence staffing decisions against work priorities. Your role provides business-minded thought leadership throughout all phases of data development, including intake, work initiation and iteration planning and project estimations; they develop business requirements, manage communications between Technology and business, resolve blockers/questions/support needs, conduct/coordinate User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and approve releases. You’ll evaluate potential impacts to data products, coordinate with stakeholders and serve as steward for data governance, access rights/audits and defect resolution.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities: 

• Serves as steward for data product, providing end-to-end subject matter expertise, including related up- and downstream systems and processes.

• Acts as governance advocate, ensuring data metrics are understood and leveraged as intended by business users. Responsible for ongoing data accuracy, including defect reporting. prioritization and resolution.

• Governs all data access requests and has final right of refusal for accesses.

• Responsible for applying secure software and systems engineering practices throughout the delivery lifecycle to ensure our data and technology solutions are protected from threats and vulnerabilities.

• Defines, prioritizes and grooms the agile delivery team's product backlog to ensure continuous delivery, as well as develops, prioritizes and manages epics and user stories for the development team.

• Responsible for the creation and execution on the solution vision/roadmap. 

• Serves as the customer and business proxy to developers and agile teams for highly complex and technical data products and experiences, often impacting multiple audiences and lines of business.

• Actively participates in daily scrum meetings, grooming meetings, project status meetings, sprint planning and review meetings.  Drives near term milestone planning by overlaying the prioritize backlog against fixed time blocks (monthly/quarterly) to help manage interdependencies and coordination across development teams.

• Participates in planning and execution of user acceptance testing, triage issues and works with development team to resolve technically complex issues requiring alignment across multiple business stakeholders and disciplines.

• Defines, monitors and analyzes metrics that reflect the quality and success of the data solution(s). 

• Oversees all communications related to data product between Technology line, business stakeholders and work requestors, resolving blockers/risks on behalf of business. Coordinates User Acceptance Testing.

• Acts as a top expertise for direction, mentoring and guidance for less experienced Data Product Owners.

• Coordinates backlog prioritization for Technology line, influencing staffing decisions against work priorities and communicating with stakeholders to convey complexity, cost, workload and roadmap.

May perform other responsibilities as assigned.

Reporting Relationships: Reports to AVP or above Data Leader.

Typical Skills and Experiences: 

Education:  Undergraduate studies in computer science, management information systems, business, statistics, math, a related field or comparable experience and education strongly preferred.  Graduate studies in business, statistics, math, computer science or a related field are a plus.

License/Certification/Designation:  Certifications are not required, CSPO, SAFe POPM, PSPO or equivalent designation preferred.

Experience:  Eight or more years of relevant experience delivering Technology enabled business solutions.  Substantial experience leading large-scale initiatives across business and technology teams. Experience engaging business leaders, data architecture and external consultants to identify and fill gaps in analytics environment. Experience with product roadmap development, SQL and Python. Insurance/financial services industry knowledge a plus.

Knowledge, Abilities and Skills:  Data application and practices knowledge. Sound decision making. Excellent oral and written communication skills. Strong analytical skills with high attention to detail and accuracy. Ability to prioritize, facilitate large meetings, influence senior leaders, resolve conflict, negotiate and coach others.

Other criteria, including leadership skills, competencies and experiences may take precedence.

Staffing exceptions to the above must be approved by the hiring manager’s leader and HR Business Partner.

Values:  Regularly and consistently demonstrates the Nationwide Values.

Job Conditions: 

Overtime Eligibility: Exempt (Not Eligible)

Working Conditions: Normal office environment.

ADA:  The above statements cover what are generally believed to be principal and essential functions of this job.  Specific circumstances may allow or require some people assigned to the job to perform a somewhat different combination of duties. 

We currently anticipate accepting applications until 06/28/2024. However, we encourage early submissions, as the posting may close sooner if a strong candidate slate is identified before the deadline.

Benefits

We have an array of benefits to fit your needs, including: medical/dental/vision, life insurance, short and long term disability coverage, paid time off with newly hired associates receiving a minimum of 18 days paid time off each full calendar year pro-rated quarterly based on hire date, nine paid holidays, 8 hours of Lifetime paid time off, 8 hours of Unity Day paid time off, 401(k) with company match, company-paid pension plan, business casual attire, and more. To learn more about the benefits we offer, click here.

Nationwide is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive culture where everyone feels challenged, appreciated, respected and engaged. Nationwide prohibits discrimination and harassment and affords equal employment opportunities to employees and applicants without regard to any characteristic (or classification) protected by applicable law.

This position could be filled within any of the lower 48 U.S. states.

Smoke-Free Iowa Statement: Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, its affiliates and subsidiaries comply with the Iowa Smokefree Air Act. Smoking is prohibited in all enclosed areas on or around company premises as well as company issued vehicles. The company offers designated smoking areas in which smoking is permitted at each individual location. The Act prohibits retaliation for reporting complaints or violations. For more information on the Iowa Smokefree Air Act, individuals may contact the Smokefree Air Act Helpline at 888-944-2247.

For NY residents please review the following state law information: Notice of Employee Rights, Protections, and Obligations LS740 (ny.gov) https://dol.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2022/02/ls740_1.pdf

Nationwide pays on a geographic-specific salary structure and placement within the actual starting salary range for this position will be determined by a number of factors including the skills, education, training, credentials and experience of the candidate; the scope, complexity and location of the role as well as the cost of labor in the market; and other conditions of employment. If a Sales job, Sales Incentives, based on performance goals are possible in addition to this range.

The national salary range for Sr Consultant, Data Product Owner : $131,000.00-$250,000.00

The expected starting salary range for Sr Consultant, Data Product Owner : $142,000.00 - $212,000.00