American Equity Investment Life Insurance Company is a leading retirement income provider specializing in fixed index annuities designed to protect principal and guarantee income. American Equity is committed to quality products and high-level customer service, integrity, excellence and safety, delivering customers the promise of protected growth of their savings and the dignity of a paycheck for life.

Founded in 1995, they currently fund over half a million retirements nationwide. American Equity is a NYSE-listed company and maintains an "excellent" rating from AM Best. The company is the #3 producer of fixed income annuities, has over $57 billion in assets, 21,000 active agents and over 700 employees. They succeed by hiring people who embody the beliefs that drive their unique, energetic, fast-paced and caring culture. The team is built on trust, motivated to accomplish a shared mission through collaboration, ownership, drive and innovation.

GENERAL PURPOSE OF THE JOB:

The Product Owner II oversees the daily activities of a development team, taking ownership of the product and ensuring that it meets the needs and requirements of its users. They develop, research and gather user stories, which describe the product from the user's perspective. The Product owner is responsible for managing the priorities, vision and execution of product development, through the development lifecycle-known as a sprint.

Product Owners are important to a business because they act as a liaison between the development team and the users. This ensures that the business is building a viable product, in turn maximizing the return on your investment and generating revenue.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Collaborates with Product Managers, prospective users or clients to anticipate needs and translate into Product requirements.
• Defines the vision and creates a product road map based on this vision in conjunction with Product Manager if applicable.
• Liaises with other Product Owners to identify dependencies and mitigation strategies
• Develops scope and defines backlog items (epic/features/user stories) that guide the Agile development team. Ensures they are "ready" for development and have correct acceptance criteria.
• Responsible for liaising with the product team and end-users to deliver updates.
• Uses effective and precise decision making to manage the product backlog and prioritize based on changing requirements.
• Maximizes Product Value; decides what work to do now and what work gets done later, including defects and bugs.
• Conduct backlog grooming meetings.
• Ensures close collaboration with the development team.
• A leader of the team.
• Represents team in front of stakeholders, clients or users.
• A member of the team.

• Works closely with Product Management team and senior management in order to create a product that fits the company portfolio.

• Tracks progress towards the release of a product, monitoring and evaluating product progress at each stage of the process.
• Provide reports to update PMO, management and stakeholders on product development operations.
• Oversees all stages of product creation including design and development.
• Analyze customer opinions and feedback to determine features or components that will add good value to a product.
• Participates in Scrum meetings and product sprints, attends sprint planning and demo meetings to give feedback on sprint achievement, as well as to scrum team.

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES:None for this position

EDUCATION AND/OR EXPERIENCE:

Four (4) years of product or project development experience and a minimum of three (3) years of experience in Product Management and/or Product Development preferred, successfully driving end to end delivery of data and intelligence solutions.

Experience with working with SalesforceFinancial Services Cloud (FSC) is preferred.

CERTIFICATES, LICENSES, PROFESSIONAL DESIGNATIONS:

• Product Owner certification is preferred

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES:

• Pertinent Business domain experience (ex: Life Insurance, Annuity, Customer Care, etc.)
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to engage, influence, and inspire partners and stakeholders to drive collaboration and alignment
• In-depth knowledge of Scrum and Agile Development Methodology
• Working knowledge of product development architecture
• Proficiency in the use of analytic tools
• Ability to prioritize effectively
• Excellent knowledge of user-centered design principles
• Ability to work with large teams
• Understanding of design quality standards

• Creative thinker
• Strategic thinking
• Outstanding communication, presentation and leadership skills.
• Organizational and time management skills
• Analytical and problem-solving skills
• Ability to workwith cross-functional teams to deliver on a common goal