Technology Product Owner

ABOUT WESTERN STATES EQUIPMENT:

Western States has a long legacy of providing quality equipment and excellent service to customers. Since 1956, our vision is to make our communities stronger, cleaner, and more productive, not just with our products and service - but through our people. We are committed to:

• The Power of our Purpose: "Building our Communities for a Better Tomorrow"
• Performance through our Values: SAFETY, EXCELLENCE, TEAMWORK, INTEGRITY, ACCOUNTABLITY, and INNOVATION
• Customer and Employee Care Commitments: Conveying Warm and Empathy, Actively Listening, Building Trust, and Saying Thank You

WHY YOU'LL LIKE IT HERE:

Recognized as one of the top private companies to work for, we put our employees first. We are fiercely committed to SAFETY and sending every employee, safely home, every single day. Our comprehensive benefits package and complete wellness programs include:

• Three weeks of accrued PTO to start, increases with tenure
• Company paid health care premium option for employees
• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• Wellness dollars
• 401k with company match and profit sharing
• Educational reimbursements, tool loans, and safety & tooling dollars
• Employee Assistance Program
• Paid Parental leave
• Care Leave

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR:

THINK-ACT-BE SAFE - At Western States, we empower every employee, every day to work and promote a safe environment to ensure all employees, vendors, and clients have a safe work environment while adhering to all applicable procedures and standards. This includes maintaining clean/clutter free personal work areas and wearing the required personal protective equipment (PPE) as identified in safety policy.

FULL SUMMARY

The Technology Product Owner, Product Support, is responsible for the tactical execution of business intelligence and analytics initiatives aligned to the enterprise analytics strategy. The Product Owner manages the product backlog and ensures validation and testing is completed. Additionally, they support delivery and communicate with stakeholders throughout the full development lifecycle. This position guarantees that solutions are tailored to business requirements, comply with data governance standards, and are developed and maintained with quality, transparency, and uniformity.

Product Execution & Delivery

• Executes applications and analytics initiatives aligned to the enterprise roadmap defined by the Applications & Analytics Product Manager.
• Owns assigned technology products and initiatives through planning, development, testing, communication, and deployment.
• Supports release planning and coordinates delivery activities to ensure solutions are implemented successfully.

Business Process & Requirements Analysis

• Partners with business stakeholders to understand current-state and future-state business processes.
• Gathers, documents, and validates requirements.
• Translates business needs into clear user stories, acceptance criteria, and supporting documentation for development teams.
• Facilitates working sessions to clarify requirements, dependencies, and assumptions.

Backlog & Agile Management

• Manages and maintains the product backlog for assigned application and analytics products, ensuring stories are prioritized, refined, and ready for development.
• Conducts backlog grooming, sprint planning, and refinement sessions with developers and stakeholders.
• Monitors and manages work request and support queues. Triages and either assigns requests to developers or promotes qualified requests to roadmap items based on request details, scope of work, and business value.
• Supports daily stand-ups, gate reviews, and retrospectives for assigned products.
• Identifies risks, dependencies, and blockers and escalates appropriately.

Quality, Validation & Governance

• Ensures solutions align with enterprise data governance, validation standards, and analytics best practices.
• Coordinates user acceptance testing (UAT) and validates that delivered solutions meet documented requirements.
• Supports testing, documentation, and post-deployment validation for assigned products.

KNOWLEDGE SKILLS AND ABILITIES

• Strong ability to translate business needs into clear, structured user stories and functional requirements.
• Solid understanding of applications and analytics development concepts, reporting, dashboards, metrics, and data validation.
• Knowledge of software development lifecycle: requirement gathering, design, implementation, testing, deployment, communication, and maintenance.
• Self-motivated, results oriented business systems thinker.
• Experience working in Agile delivery environments, including backlog management and sprint execution.
• Strong facilitation, communication, and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Analytical mindset with the ability to understand complex business processes.
• Working knowledge of Power BI, SQL-based reporting, Azure DevOps, SharePoint, and Microsoft Office.
• Highly organized and able to manage multiple priorities simultaneously.
• Ability to keep current with emerging trends, tools, and technologies in the software industry.
• Consistent attendance.

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Systems, Computer Science, or a related field or equivalent heavy equipment dealership business experience, minimum of two years required.
• Two years of experience as a Product Owner, Business Analyst, operations support or similar role supporting analytics initiatives, application development, operations, or digital deliverables required.
• One year experience using Agile methodologies and user story development preferred.
• One Year experience with Microsoft Dynamics (AX or D365) ERP software preferred.
• Must be able to communicate clearly in English (read, write, speak, comprehend).

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:

• Ability to stand for long periods of time along with walking, sitting, repetitive climbing stairs, reaching (including but not limited to above-shoulder reaching), repetitive bending, stooping, pushing, pulling, leaning and twisting.
• Exposure to extreme temperatures and environment.
• Ability to lift up to 25 lbs. in accordance with Western States' Lifting Policy to include amount and approach.

Disclaimer: The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by employees assigned to this classification. It is not intended be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required of employees in this classification