Product Owner

Position Summary
ERT is seeking a Product Owner to oversee development of cloud native solutions for the National Weather Service's (NWS) Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) system. The Product Owner will serve as the voice of the customer and stakeholders for the team, ensuring that features, enablers, and user stories are well-defined, prioritized, and delivered to support the program's mission of building a scalable, secure, and reliable cloud-based enterprise platform.

The ideal candidate will combine expertise in agile delivery with a strong understanding of cloud-native architectures, microservices, and enterprise system modernization. Responsibilities include:

• Own and refine the team backlog, ensuring alignment with program-level objectives and priorities.
• Write clear, concise, and testable user stories and acceptance criteria.
• Prioritize work to maximize business value and technical outcomes, balancing functional features with enabler work (e.g., DevSecOps, technical debt, and cloud infrastructure needs).
• Act as the bridge between stakeholders, Product Management, and the Agile Team.
• Engage with stakeholders (internal users, system operators, mission partners) to ensure user needs are met.
• Participate in and contribute to all Agile team ceremonies (refinement, sprint planning, reviews, retrospectives).
• Ensure that acceptance criteria are met and deliverables align with program increment (PI) objectives.
• Support the team in making scope, schedule, and priority trade-offs.
• Collaborate with the Release Train Engineer (RTE) and other POs to manage cross-team dependencies.
• Contribute to Program Increment (PI) Planning, providing team context and input into feature decomposition and estimation.
• Provide transparency into team progress, risks, and impediments.
  
  

Required Skills

• 3+ years of experience as a Product Owner, Business Analyst, or equivalent role in an Agile environment.
• Experience working within SAFe or other scaled agile frameworks.
• Demonstrated ability to manage and prioritize a backlog in a complex technical environment.
• Strong communication, facilitation, and stakeholder engagement skills.
  Familiarity with cloud computing platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and microservices architectures.
• Ability to translate complex technical concepts into business value and user-focused requirements.
• Must be a US Citizen or Permanent Resident and be able to pass a background investigation to obtain a security badge to enter the applicable government facility.
  

Desired

• SAFe Professional certification
• Familiarity with weather, climate, or geospatial systems (e.g., AWIPS, NOAA, or other mission-critical platforms
• Experience in large-scale system modernization or cloud migration programs
  

Education
BS in Computer Science, related discipline, or equivalent.

Location
This position supports work at NOAA's Silver Spring and College Park, MD facilities and may be performed remotely with 0-25% travel.

Compensation
The salary range for this role is $62,000 - 275,000/year. This range is a good faith estimate based on similar roles across the organization. ERT uses several factors when extending an offer, including but not limited to, the position's scope and expected duties, a candidate's work experience, education/training, and key skills.

Benefits
All full-time employees are eligible to participate in our flexible benefits package, which includes:

• Medical, Rx, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan with company-matching
• 11 Paid Federal Government Holidays
• Paid Time Off (PTO)
• Basic Life & Supplemental Life
• Health Savings Account, Flexible Spending and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts
• Short-Term & Long-Term Disability
• Employee assistance program (EAP)
• Tuition Reimbursement, Personal Development & Learning Opportunities
• Skills Development & Certifications
• Professional Membership Reimbursement
• Employee Referral Program
• Competitive compensation plan
• Discretionary variable incentive bonuses based on factors such as individual performance, business unit performance, and/or the company's performance
• Publication and Conference Presentation Awards with bonuses

ERT is a VEVRAA Federal Contractor and Equal Opportunity employer - All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or protected Veteran status.

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