SoCalGas, the nation’s largest gas distribution utility, is dedicated to providing safe, reliable, and affordable energy to over 21 million Southern California customers. Through innovation, collaboration, and an unwavering commitment to the needs of our communities we proudly uphold our mindset of “Glad to be of Service” and provide exceptional customer service today and ready to meet California’s energy needs with innovative solutions for tomorrow.

As an employee of SoCalGas, you will support our core values to do the right thing, champion people, and shape the future. You will play a pivotal role in the energy transition initiatives, supporting our mission: Safe, reliable, and affordable energy delivery today. Ready for tomorrow. We are committed to attracting top talent and fostering a diverse workforce that reflects the vibrant communities we serve.

As an employee of SoCalGas, you’ll enjoy a competitive compensation plan, upward mobility opportunities and the ability to find a true work life balance. Discover the rewards of joining SoCalGas by exploring our website: Our Mission; Sustainability, In the Community, and Employee Benefits. Join SoCalGas today and become a vital part of a team that is driving innovation, championing community needs, and shaping the future of energy in California.

Primary Purpose:

The Product Owner is a member of an agile team, primarily responsible for defining user stories [i.e., a short description of a unit of work to be delivered within an agile sprint, detailing the desired system or software functionality written in the user's language] and prioritizing the backlog of user stories based on value for the customer. Responsible for teams which typically have fewer dependencies [i.e., reliance and interrelatedness with other systems, applications, platforms, and workstreams which result in a more challenging product to manage due to the additional risk]. Focuses on defining user stories that can be delivered by a single team.

As the face of a delivery team, navigates IT and Business Environments with few dependencies, translating business or capability value into user stories and features. Prepares for and participates in agile ceremonies including sprint planning, user story refinement, daily stand-ups, demonstrations, and retrospectives. Ensures the agile team is working on the right things at the right time, defining the roadmap for their team.

Duties and Responsibilities

- Captures and documents user stories to inform priority and sprint planning. Defines stories and features according to quality standards for clarity. Acts as a trusted advisor and liaison between the team and its primary stakeholder. Communicates value of a particular story to scrum team and ensures user stories are well-formed with clear acceptance criteria. Manages team sprint plan and a healthy backlog, a list of well-defined prioritized work that is ready to be delivered within a two-week sprint.

- Maintains a healthy backlog of work for the team, refining and prioritizing backlog items and assisting in the creation of clear sprint plans. Drives demos and reviews with stakeholders to ensure alignment on user stories, stakeholder priorities, and value delivery. Provides feedback to team on work completed. Reviews and accepts user stories and features as completed, ensuring the story meets acceptance criteria and end user needs.

- Writes features [i.e., a grouping of work defined in an agile way and made up of individual units of work that can be performed within a two-week sprint] and creates a quarterly plan in situations with fewer dependencies, focused on net new development. Participates in planning activities across the enterprise, including group-level planning activities that involve the work of multiple agile teams, such as quarterly planning or program increment (PI) planning. Participates in group events to review outputs and progress across teams.

- Implements team vision and goals, defining team's roadmap for a 3 month time horizon and aligning priorities with the product roadmap guidelines set by the Group Product Owner. Identifies and qualifies potential opportunities for their team, focused on net new products, features, and stories for quarterly planning. Maintains product roadmap and qualifies work to be accepted into the backlog.

- Performs other duties as assigned (no more than 5% of duties).

Education

- Bachelor's Degree Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering, Business Administration, related field or equivalent training and/or experience. Required

Experience

- 3 years - Related work experience in Project or Product Delivery, Product Management, Software Project Delivery, IT and/or Business Operations or equivalent experience. Required

Skills and Abilities

- Required:

- Stakeholder Management - Ability to create and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders (including clients) in order to drive outcomes and create alignment around a vision or course of action. Intermediate

- Adaptability and Learning Agility - Ability to learn, adapt, unlearn, and relearn to rapidly adapt to changing business needs, processes, standards, and tools; a strong ability to prioritize and reprioritize work. Beginner

- Value Realization - Strong ability to identify the benefits provided by a proposed user story or feature relative to the effort that it will require from the team in order to drive the effective prioritization of work to maximize the benefits delivered by the team to the customer. Beginner

- Product Management - Strong product management skills, including an ability to communicate and inspire product vision, strategy and roadmap, apply unique business insights, prioritize work to be completed, and make sound decisions aligned to business goals. Beginner

- Preferred:

- User Experience - Strong understanding of how users will interact with systems, applications, and products, with an ability to design applications and interfaces that are consumable and easy to navigate. Beginner

- Automation and Security Concepts - Knowledge of Automation and Security Concepts (e.g., test automation, code coverage, DevSecOps, CI/CD pipelines, etc.). Beginner

- Agile Tools - Knowledge of Agile Tools, such as Azure, Jira, etc. Intermediate

- Agile Methodologies - Knowledge of concepts, including Agile Scrum and/or Kanban, and application of Agile methodology (e.g., Lean, SAFe, LeSS) for project management to be able to design, implement and manage projects. Intermediate

Licenses and Certifications

- Agile Scrum, Product Owner or Scrum Master certifications such as Certified Product Owner Certification or Certified Scrum Master Certification. Preferred

Other Qualifications

- Textio - 4/26/21

- May require work outside of normal business hours and/or 24/7 response availability for system and application maintenance, enhancements, production releases and/or operational emergencies.

Equal Opportunity Employer Minorities/Women/Protected Veterans/Disabled