Product Owner Mobile Application

Title: Product Owner Mobile Application

CONTRACT DETAILS:

Industry: Utilities / Energy

Team: Digital Customer Experience / Digital Customer Service

Location:

New York, NY

Work Arrangement: Remote candidates considered; travel onsite approximately 1–2 times per month as needed

Employment Type: Contract, approximately 1–2 years, with potential full-time conversion for the right candidate

Openings: 1

Preferred Time Zone: Eastern Time

Target Start Date: November 1, 2026

Interview Process: Hiring manager/team screen, technical screen, and case study/practical evaluation

Full-Time Conversion: If converted, the individual must reside within approximately three hours of the employer and work onsite three days per week.

About the Role

Our client, a large utility organization, is seeking an experienced Product Owner to support a major customer-facing mobile application modernization initiative while continuing to own the existing mobile product. The application supports account management, billing and payments, outage reporting and tracking, energy usage insights, affordability programs, and other customer self-service transactions.

The Product Owner will guide a new minimum viable product (MVP), define roadmap and feature priorities, represent the Voice of the Customer, and help evaluate whether the new platform is ready to replace the existing experience. The current application has separate native iOS and Android code bases; the team is considering a cross-platform approach, with React under evaluation.

Direct ownership of a customer-facing mobile application is required. Candidates must demonstrate meaningful responsibility for mobile roadmaps, releases, and development teams.

Key Responsibilities

· Own and prioritize the roadmap and backlog for both the existing mobile application and the modernization initiative, balancing customer needs, business objectives, and technical dependencies.

· Define the new application’s product vision and MVP scope in partnership with business stakeholders, external vendors, UX, engineering, architecture, cybersecurity, and analytics teams.

· Translate customer and business needs into epics, features, user stories, and clear, testable acceptance criteria; manage the team backlog in Azure DevOps or comparable Agile tools.

· Use customer feedback, usability testing, satisfaction surveys, and app store reviews to identify friction points and prioritize improvements.

· Support quarterly releases and ongoing enhancements to the existing application while guiding development of the new MVP.

· Partner with mobile developers and architects to evaluate native and cross-platform approaches, APIs, backend integrations, authentication, security, and maintainability.

· Ensure mobile experiences align with design standards, accessibility guidelines, and enterprise architecture requirements.

· Lead backlog refinement, sprint planning, stand-ups, reviews, and retrospectives; contribute to SAFe Program Increment planning and manage cross-team dependencies.

· Coordinate vendor deliverables and internal teams on scope, timelines, requirements, and acceptance criteria.

· Review and accept completed stories, coordinate user acceptance testing, and partner with QA and DevOps on beta testing, app store submissions, and release readiness.

· Evaluate competing mobile approaches and the MVP against business, customer, technical, and operational thresholds; help lead the go/no-go decision on migration.

· Define and monitor mobile product metrics, including adoption, active users, engagement, retention, crash rates, and conversion; use findings to guide improvements.

· Communicate priorities, progress, risks, and decisions clearly to business and technical stakeholders.

· Complete required System Emergency Assignments during storm events or system emergencies to support service restoration.

Required Qualifications

· Direct Product Owner experience with meaningful ownership of a customer-facing iOS and/or Android application, including development, launch, releases, and ongoing enhancements.

· At least 3 years of relevant experience, including direct mobile application product ownership.

· Bachelor’s degree with at least 3 years of relevant experience, an associate degree with at least 5 years, or a high school diploma with at least 10 years.

· Strong mobile roadmap and backlog management skills, with experience prioritizing competing requirements and writing user stories and acceptance criteria.

· Hands-on experience with Azure DevOps or Jira and Agile delivery practices such as Scrum or Kanban.

· Strong understanding of mobile application lifecycles, platform design guidelines, and native versus cross-platform approaches.

· Technical credibility discussing mobile architecture, RESTful APIs, backend integrations, authentication, and security with developers and architects; development experience is not required.

· Strong Voice of the Customer orientation and ability to translate customer and business needs into actionable product decisions.

· Strong communication, stakeholder management, and cross-functional leadership skills, including working directly with mobile developers and external partners.

· Willingness to travel to New York City approximately 1–2 times per month as needed.

Preferred Qualifications

· Experience with React and/or React Native or cross-platform mobile products, particularly transitions from native iOS and Android applications.

· Experience leading mobile modernization, rebuilds, MVP launches, platform migrations, or go/no-go evaluations.

· Experience with Apple App Store Connect, Google Play Console, beta testing tracks, app store compliance, and release workflows.

· Experience using mobile performance and engagement metrics, including app ratings, crash-free sessions, retention, and push notification engagement.

· Experience integrating mobile applications with customer billing, customer information/CRM, or outage management systems.

· Familiarity with Azure cloud services and mobile security protocols such as biometrics, OAuth2/OIDC, and token-based authentication.

SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager, Certified Scrum Product Owner, or equivalent certification