Senior Digital Product Owner

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Job Description:

Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc.

When you join Caterpillar, you're joining a global team who cares not just about the work we do – but also about each other.  We are the makers, problem solvers, and future world builders who are creating stronger, more sustainable communities. We don't just talk about progress and innovation here – we make it happen, with our customers, where we work and live. Together, we are building a better world, so we can all enjoy living in it.

The Senior Digital Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of a digital product by bridging business needs, technical implementation, and end‑to‑end customer outcomes. This role works closely with application and engineering teams to translate business objectives and customer problems into well‑defined product features, epics, and user stories.
The Product Owner owns the product backlog, ensures clarity of requirements, and provides continuous context to engineering teams so that solutions are technically sound, scalable, and aligned to business strategy and customer value across the full product lifecycle.

Job Description

Role Summary

The Senior Digital Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of a digital product by bridging business needs, technical implementation, and end‑to‑end customer outcomes. This role works closely with application and engineering teams to translate business objectives and customer problems into well‑defined product features, epics, and user stories.

The Product Owner owns the product backlog, ensures clarity of requirements, and provides continuous context to engineering teams so that solutions are technically sound, scalable, and aligned to business strategy and customer value across the full product lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities

Product Ownership & Backlog Management

• Own and manage the product backlog, ensuring items are clearly defined, prioritized, and aligned with business goals
• Translate business requirements, customer needs, and operational inputs into epics, features, and user stories
• Continuously refine and groom the backlog with application and engineering teams to maintain readiness
• Make trade‑off decisions balancing scope, quality, timelines, and technical feasibility

Collaboration with Application & Engineering Teams

• Work day‑to‑day with application, platform, and data engineering teams to clarify requirements and acceptance criteria
• Provide end‑to‑end product context so teams understand why a feature is being built, not just what
• Partner with architects and technical leads to ensure solutions align with platform standards, scalability, and long‑term roadmap
• Participate actively in sprint planning, reviews, and backlog refinement sessions

Business & Stakeholder Engagement

• Act as the primary interface between business stakeholders and delivery teams
• Gather and consolidate inputs from business, customers, support, field teams, and operations
• Clearly communicate product vision, priorities, progress, and trade‑offs to stakeholders
• Ensure delivered features meet intended business outcomes and customer value

End‑to‑End Product Thinking

• Maintain a holistic view of the product across customer experience, technical architecture, data flows, operations, and support
• Understand and articulate upstream and downstream dependencies across systems and teams
• Support release planning, go‑live readiness, and post‑release validation
• Use feedback, data, and operational insights to drive continuous improvement

Quality, Acceptance & Delivery

• Define clear acceptance criteria and support user acceptance testing (UAT) and business sign‑off
• Validate that delivered features meet functional, non‑functional, and usability expectations
• Collaborate with support teams to ensure smooth adoption and issue resolution

Required Skills & Experience

Core Skills

• Strong experience as a Product Owner, Digital Product Owner, or Business/Product Analyst in an agile environment
• Ability to understand technical concepts (APIs, systems, data flows, integrations) and discuss solutions with engineering teams
• Solid business analysis and requirement definition skills
• Experience working with cross‑functional teams (engineering, UX, data, support, business)

Preferred Skills

• Experience with enterprise or platform‑based digital products
• Familiarity with Agile / Scrum practices and tools (e.g., backlog management, sprint ceremonies)
• Ability to analyze customer and operational data to inform product decisions
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills

Posting Dates:

Caterpillar is an Equal Opportunity Employer.  Qualified applicants of any age are encouraged to apply

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