Position Overview

The Agile Product Owner Advisor is a strategic and collaborative leader within an agile development team, responsible for managing the product backlog and ensuring that development efforts align with customer needs and business goals. This role involves translating high-level business requirements into clear, actionable features, defining acceptance criteria, and prioritizing work to maximize value delivery. The Product Owner serves as the voice of the customer, working closely with developers, architects, operations, and business stakeholders to guide product development through iterative cycles.

The Product Owner should embrace the Product Mindset and is expected to understand strategic roadmap goals, conduct customer interviews, analyze data, and participate in portfolio discussions to shape the product vision. They are empowered to support intake, prioritize delivery in partnership with business and Engineering, and ensure the Scrum team is focused on solving the right problems with innovative solutions. This role demands strong business and technical acumen, the ability to communicate effectively across teams, and a commitment to delivering measurable outcomes.

Responsibilities

Understand and align product goals with strategic business objectives to ensure delivery of meaningful value.
Build and maintain strong relationships with business and technology partners, fostering cross-functional collaboration.
Act as the primary contact for resolving escalations, removing impediments, and managing stakeholder negotiations and conflicts.
Collaborate with stakeholders to onboard new initiatives and integrate them effectively into the product development lifecycle.
Support the development of specifications, including value propositions and technical financial estimates, to guide delivery planning.
Align with delivery teams to understand capacity and ensure prioritization is accurately reflected in the product backlog.
Own and refine the product backlog, maintaining a steady flow of well-defined work items for the development team.
Analyze business needs and support requirement gathering, architecture discussions, and design decisions within agile teams.
Translate business requirements into actionable features and define iteration scope to guide development.
Participate actively in agile ceremonies and respond to team inquiries, clarifying features and acceptance criteria.
Communicate the product vision and strategic decisions to the team, reinforcing customer-centric thinking and business rationale.
Conduct data analysis and profiling to support product decisions, including mapping source-to-target data and investigating issues using tools like SQL, SAS, or Python

Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in MIS, Business, Computer Science, or a related field.
11-13 years of experience in data analysis; Healthcare data domain experience and Agile certification (e.g., SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager) are highly desirable.
Demonstrated experience as a Product Owner or in a similar role within Agile development environments, with a strong grasp of Agile principles, Scrum methodology, and modern delivery practices such as continuous integration and test-driven development.
Proven ability to translate complex business needs into clear, actionable features and acceptance criteria, with a focus on delivering customer-centric solutions.
Aptitude for gaining deep knowledge of the industry, business strategy, and key data domains (e.g., provider data, claims, membership, benefits), and proactively applying this knowledge to drive meaningful results.
Strong interpersonal and relationship management skills, with the ability to facilitate collaboration across multiple functions, departments, and levels.
Excellent oral and written communication skills, with the ability to influence and negotiate effectively across technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Proficiency in Agile and collaboration tools (JIRA) with hands-on experience supporting agile ceremonies and backlog management.
Advanced data analysis capabilities, including experience with SQL tools (e.g.,Toad, SAS, Alation), and data profiling techniques; familiarity with cloud technologies and data warehousing is a plus.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to investigate code, decode data issues, and support architecture and design decisions.
Exceptional organizational and work management skills, with experience managing dependencies, risks, and delivery timelines in dynamic, lean/agile environments.

Required Skills

Data Analytics Platforms (Databricks and/or Snowflake)
Python, DevOps, Basic Cloud Experience (AWS/Azure)

Preferred Skills, Experience & Education

Cloud Certification (AWS Cloud Practitioner or similar)

About Evernorth Health Services

Evernorth Health Services, a division of The Cigna Group, creates pharmacy, care and benefit solutions to improve health and increase vitality. We relentlessly innovate to make the prediction, prevention and treatment of illness and disease more accessible to millions of people. Join us in driving growth and improving lives.

Agile Product Owner Advisor - HIH - Evernorth