IT Product Owner

Costco IT is responsible for the technical future of Costco Wholesale, the third largest retailer in the world with wholesale operations in fourteen countries. Despite our size and explosive international expansion, we continue to provide a family, employee centric atmosphere in which our employees thrive and succeed.

This is an environment unlike anything in the high-tech world and the secret of Costco’s success is its culture. The value Costco puts on its employees is well documented in articles from a variety of publishers including Bloomberg and Forbes. Our employees and our members come FIRST.  Costco is well known for its generosity and community service and has won many awards for its philanthropy. The company joins with its employees to take an active role in volunteering by sponsoring many opportunities to help others. 

Come join the Costco Wholesale IT family. Costco IT is a dynamic, fast-paced environment, working through exciting transformation efforts. We are building the next generation retail environment where you will be surrounded by dedicated and highly professional employees.

Product Owners are responsible for defining requirements, assisting with the overall product roadmap/vision, and driving value at the scrum team level. Product Owners work closely with teams and are the “voice of the customer”, ensuring the needs of the end-user are incorporated into the product from design to deployment. Product owners are responsible for the authoring of functional user stories which are used to support the day to day development of new features and capabilities.

The Product Owner is a strategic orchestrator sitting at the vital nexus of Financial Management, Technical Program Management (TPM), and Agile Delivery Leadership. This role requires a tri-sector leader capable of harmonizing fiscal accountability with high-velocity technical execution. You are responsible for the end-to-end fiscal health of the program including budget tracking, creating Purchase Orders (PO), variance remediation, strategic capital allocation etc. You ensure that every dollar spent aligns with the organization’s long-term investment goals. As the Product Owner, you are the bridge between executive vision and engineering reality. You navigate complex system integrations and architectural dependencies, translating high-level business objectives into robust, scalable technical roadmaps. You don't just report on status; you proactively identify technical bottlenecks and engineer the path forward. You synchronize multiple delivery pods, ensuring that the principles of Agile methodologies are applied with rigor. 

This is a high-stakes, high-visibility role acting as the central nervous system between Business Units, IT Leadership, Vendor Management, and Finance. You will operate in an environment characterized by high ambiguity and rapid evolution, where your ability to create order from chaos is paramount. You are expected to be a master communicator, capable of distilling granular technical risks into clear, actionable insights for Senior Leadership, ensuring that the portfolio remains on track, on budget, and in total alignment with the organization’s strategic North Star.

If you want to be a part of one of the worldwide BEST companies “to work for”, simply apply and let your career be reimagined.

ROLE

• Develops complex multi-year forecasting, cost plans, manages budgets, responsible for the "Actual vs. Plan" analysis, identifies financial risks before they become overages, and re-allocates funds across workstreams as priorities shift.

• Distinguishes between CapEx and OpEx spend in alignment with corporate accounting standards, ensures that labor hours and hardware/software costs are tracked accurately for tax and audit purposes.

• Partners with Legal and Procurement to lead the vendor selection processes. 

• Drafts and reviews Master Service Agreement MSAs, Statement of Works (SOWs), Order Forms etc. and ensures technical requirements are tied to clear payment milestones, protecting the organization from delivery gaps.

• Manages the end-to-end delivery of projects, workstreams, or large-scale programs, ensuring alignment with strategic roadmaps and business objectives. 

• Develops, maintains, and executes comprehensive project plans, including timelines, milestones, budgets, resource allocation, dependencies, and risk mitigation strategies.

• Navigates the complexities of the RMN portfolio by understanding how different platforms interact. 

• Identifies technical dependencies that could stall delivery and work with Architects to find "Plan B" solutions.

• Builds RAID logs and performs root-cause analysis on project blockers and presents data-driven mitigation strategies to Senior Leadership that balance speed-to-market with technical stability.

• Drives on-time, on-scope, and on-budget delivery by proactively managing execution across multiple teams.

• Translates "velocity charts" and "sprint burn-downs" into "business value" and "ROI." 

• Fosters and manages stakeholder relationships at all levels, ensuring clear and concise communication regarding project status, risks, and outcomes.

• Fosters partnerships with product owners, solution architects, and engineering leads to drive unified delivery.

• Ensures all project activities, governance documentation, and vendor engagements comply with organizational policies and standards.

• Translates technical concepts and project status into clear business terms for diverse audiences, including senior leadership.

• Defines the sprint plan based on the priority outlined within the overall product vision and roadmap. 

• Creates and authors user stories with detailed acceptance criteria written in the customers’ voice.

• Collaborates with the team to prepare the estimates for the user stories within the product backlog.

• Prioritizes the sprint backlog (as part of the sprint planning ceremony) based on the sequencing / ranking of features defined in the product roadmap.

• Applies various project management tools (e.g., Smartsheet, MS Project, ServiceNow, JIRA, SharePoint, or Confluence) to ensure quality and predictability.

• Conducts the formal review and acceptance of user stories implemented by a team within a sprint.

• Drives the execution of user acceptance testing (UAT) activities with support from business and technology team members.

• Supports and participates in program level ceremonies including product increment (PI) planning sessions with input and consultation from the Product Manager.

• Performs functional reviews as part of sprint demos.

• Helps with the allocation of resources and provides teams with the necessary support to remediate impediments and reported issues.

• Facilitates program increment (PI) sessions across all delivery pods aligned to a product, or value stream, and the accompanying planning sessions (pre and post PI planning sessions).

• Monitors delivery team metrics to evaluate progress against delivery milestones (e.g., release burnups).

• Aggregates individual delivery pod status into portfolio-level risks, assumptions and interdependencies.

• Creates weekly reports highlighting the health of the overall delivery status to program leadership and various stakeholders.

REQUIRED

• Ability to conduct deep-dive variance analysis and maintain fiscal integrity across complex, multi-year roadmaps.

• Familiarity with financial and procurement systems and the ability to manage the Purchase Order (PO) lifecycle.

• Ability to understand and discuss cloud infrastructure (GCP), API integrations, and software delivery pipelines with engineering leads.

• Advanced mastery of Jira and Confluence (specifically for portfolio tracking), Smartsheet, ServiceNow, and Microsoft Power BI or Tableau for executive reporting.

• Proficiency in translating "business speak" into high-quality User Stories and Acceptance Criteria. 

• Expert facilitation of PI Planning, Backlog Refinement, Sprint Retrospectives, and Scrum-of-Scrums.

• The ability to walk into a room of VPs and explain complex technical or financial setbacks with a solution-oriented, calm demeanor.

• A master at negotiating between competing priorities (e.g., when the Product Manager wants a feature but the Architect insists on technical debt remediation).

• High tolerance for ambiguity and the ability to "build the plane while flying it" in a rapidly evolving portfolio.

• The skill to drive results across matrixed teams (Finance, Business, Engineering etc.) where you do not have direct hiring/firing power.

Recommended

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Business Administration, Finance, or a related field. (Master’s Degree or MBA is a significant plus).

• 10 years of experience in Technical Program Management, Agile Delivery, or a related leadership role within a large-scale enterprise environment.

• Financial Management: Minimum 3–5 years of direct experience managing multi-million-dollar project budgets, including forecasting, accruals, and CapEx/OpEx modeling.

• Proven track record acting as a Chief Scrum Master for multiple distributed teams in a hybrid environment.

• Vendor & Contract Mastery: Demonstrable experience navigating the procurement lifecycle, specifically drafting and negotiating SOWs, MSAs, and Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

• Proficient in Google Workspace applications, including Sheets, Docs, Slides, and Gmail.

Required Documents

●      Cover Letter

●      Resume

California applicants, please click here to review the Costco Applicant Privacy Notice.

Pay Ranges: 

Level 1  - $90,000 - $115,000

Level 2  - $105,000 - $135,000

Level 3  - $130,000 - $160,000

Level 4  - $140,000 - $200,000

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off, health benefits - medical/dental/vision/hearing aid/pharmacy/behavioral health/employee assistance, health care reimbursement account, dependent care assistance plan, short-term disability and long-term disability insurance, AD&D insurance, life insurance, 401(k), stock purchase plan to eligible employees.

Costco is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Costco is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or any other legally protected status. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request to IT-Recruiting@costco.com

If hired, you will be required to provide proof of authorization to work in the United States. Applicants and employees for this position will not be sponsored for work authorization, including, but not limited to H1-B visas.

Salary : $115,000 - $200,000