Principal Product Owner

Principal Product Owner

Oakland, CA-Hybrid (2 days in a month)

12 months

**OPEN TO BOTH LOCAL & NON-LOCAL CANDIDATES** The role is . Hybrid – 2-days per month and occasionally another day or two as needed. Given the infrequency of needing to be in the office, this could be a remote position.

**Client laptop will be provided if the hire is within the service territory. Otherwise, the vendor must help provide a device to the hire and they will get connected via Citrix/VDI

**RE: Travel/onsite requirements: if the candidate is remote, WITH PRIOR client MANAGER APPROVAL, may submit expense for reimbursements for travels to Oakland

Top Things:

• Led a flagship consumer digital mobile product end-to-end
• Senior product leadership in complex, regulated or systems-heavy environments;
• Executive-level influence combined with hands-on delivery

Head of Product - Mobile Application

Department: Grid Research Innovation & Development

Role Overview:

• This role would lead a foundational initiative to redefine how client serves customers through a unified, consumer grade digital experience. The Head of Product will be accountable for the product vision, strategy, and outcomes for a first-of-its-kind utility mobile application.
• This role is responsible and accountable for every facet of the product including the customer experience, product roadmap, integration to the business, and investment tradeoffs, while reporting progress and decisions to executive leadership.
• This leader is both visionary and hands on – equally effective in shaping executive alignment and making day to day product decisions that move delivery forward.
• This role will start as an individual contributor, with matrixed organizational support, growing to include direct support roles as needed. This role may convert from a contract position to a permanent position in the future depending on evolution of the product and maturation of the supporting business function.

Key Responsibilities:

• Own and evolve the end-end product vision for client’s Mobile Application (also known as “Project Charlie”) grounded in customer needs, system realities, and their long-term strategy.
• Set and enforce experience standards that materially raise client’s bar for consumer experience.
• Make final calls on roadmap prioritization, scope, and investment tradeoffs based on impact to customers, time, cost, and risk.
• Actively define and strengthen how client understands product leadership, customer digital experience, and product decision-making.
• Partner closely with Customer, IT, and Innovation teams as well as engineering, design, data, and operations to translate vision into execution. Build and manage relationships with additional support functions including finance, privacy, legal, cybersecurity as needed.
• Work with and inform the customer device and grid edge strategy (e.g., disaggregation, AMI 2.0, and emerging solutions).
• Represent Charlie with executive stakeholders, regulators as needed, and internal leadership forums.
• Oversees day-to-day work of development team including coaching and mentoring others to improve their knowledge or skills.

Minimum Experience

• Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science in Engineering, Business, or Computer Science
• 12 years building and scaling consumer digital products, including 5 years leading teams in a senior product capacity.
• Experience with Distributed Energy Resources and consumer energy products
• Proven ability to influence executives and drive alignment without dilution of product integrity, while still obtaining breakthrough outcomes.
• Strong design judgment; demonstrated ability to recognize and demand design excellence.
• Technical fluency sufficient to engage in architectural and feasibility discussions.

Desired Experience

• Experience in energy, utilities, hardware software systems, or regulated environments strongly preferred.
• Experience developing first-to-market products.
• Desired Characteristics
• Bias toward action, concise, and passionate
• Removes barriers to products and projects moving forward in an autonomous fashion
• Able to operate at different levels of abstraction, outcome focused while understanding and adhering to process where necessary
• Empathic and curious – has an ability to seek to understand while driving towards shared outcomes
• Handles multiple projects and stakeholders and pushes for pace with self-directed drive.

What Success Looks Like

• Deploy a delightful Mobile App experience which is delivered on time and budget which sets the bar for what an amazing utility energy experience looks like.
• Executives can clearly articulate Project Charlie’s value, direction, and “buy in” to the product and approach.
• Product decisions consistently favor customer and system impact over convenience.
• Client’s expectations for digital experience shift meaningfully upward.