Consultant, Data Product Owner

If you’re passionate about innovation and love working in an environment where you can constantly improve and adopt new technologies to drive business results, then Nationwide’s Information Technology team could be the place for you! At Nationwide®, “on your side” goes beyond just words. Our customers are at the center of everything we do and we’re looking for associates who are passionate about delivering extraordinary care.

This role will be filled in a hybrid capacity, with collaboration taking place in one of our office locations in Columbus, OH, Scottsdale, AZ, or Des Moines, IA.

This role does not qualify for employer-sponsored work authorization. Nationwide does not participate in the Stem OPT Extension program.

Are you looking for an opportunity to make a difference for our P&C business and the enterprise?  Are you looking for a challenging, autonomous position leveraging Intelligent Data & Analytics Capabilities? Are you an individual contributor able to provide authoritative leadership to a diverse, matrixed team? We’re looking for dynamic and self-motivated Data Product Owners aligned to our Policy and Quote (“Agreement”) data capabilities and solutions.

We expect to fill two positions – one focused on personal lines and a second responsible for commercial lines and Excess, Surplus & Specialty. The Consultant, Data Product Owner is responsible for setting data product strategy for the domain and supporting the development of desirable, feasible, viable, and sustainable data solutions to meet stakeholder needs.

Key Skills

• Data analysis and query building

• Servant leadership and communication

• Problem solving

• Design thinking

• Pricing and product acumen

• Reconciliation, financial controls, and data quality acumen

• Technical: SQL, ETL development, Agile practices, and data modeling techniques

Portfolio Management

• Manages and prioritizes the flow of work into the domain

• Ensures awareness and understanding of business-funded projects that will impact the domain, including key project objectives and milestones

• Coordinates the release and planning activities with the Delivery Leader, the Agile Leader, the Technical Lead, and other key cross-domain resources

• Supports the flow of work to the Agile teams, working with the Agile Leader within the domain to ensure the work is well defined, visualized, and sized appropriately

• Guides the work through incremental deliveries across multiple Agile teams and coordinates User Acceptance Testing with identified stakeholders

Stakeholder Management

• Identifies all current and future stakeholders for the domain

• Connects key deliverables to stakeholder needs and multiple stakeholders to key deliverables (build once, use twice)

• Supports the customer experience to ensure continuous improvement of the domain related to its ability to support desired business outcomes and achieve business value

• Evaluates tactical solutions proposed within the domain against strategic objectives as presented in the vision and roadmap, maximizing business value and minimizing technical debt

Compensation Grade G5

Job Description Summary

Nationwide’s industry leading workforce is passionate about creating data solutions that are secure, reliable and efficient in support of our mission to provide extraordinary care. Nationwide embraces an agile work environment and collaborative culture through the understanding of business processes, relationship entities and requirements using data analysis, quality, visualization, governance, engineering, robotic process automation, and machine learning to produce targeted data solutions. If you have the drive and desire to be part of a future forward data enabled culture, we want to hear from you.

As a Data Product Owner, you’ll be the data-related voice of the customer within a Technology development line and serve as the primary liaison between the business and Technology. You’ll be responsible for creating and maintaining the vision and value for the data product. You’ll continually re-prioritize backlog of defects and new development requests for the line(s) that support their data products, working with Technology leadership to influence staffing decisions against work priorities. Your role provides business-minded thought leadership throughout all phases of data development, including intake, work initiation and iteration planning and project estimations; they develop business requirements, manage communications between Technology and business, resolve blockers/questions/support needs, conduct/coordinate User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and approve releases. You’ll evaluate potential impacts to data products, coordinate with stakeholders and serve as steward for data governance, access rights/audits and defect resolution.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities: 

• Executes on the solution vision/roadmap. 

• Serves as the customer and business proxy to developers and agile delivery teams for a single data product/experience impacting a single line of business.

• Actively participates in daily scrum meetings, grooming meetings, project status meetings, sprint planning and review meetings. Drives near-term milestone planning by overlaying the prioritized backlog against fixed-time blockers (monthly/quarterly) to help manage interdependencies and coordination across development teams.

• Responsible for applying secure software and systems engineering practices throughout the delivery lifecycle to ensure our data and technology solutions are protected from threats and vulnerabilities.

• Participates in planning and execution of user acceptance testing, triage issues and works with development team to resolve.

• Manages all communications related to data product between Technology line, business stakeholders and work requestors, resolving blockers/risks on behalf of business, with some supervision. Conducts/coordinates User Acceptance Testing.

• Defines, monitors and analyzes metrics that reflect the quality and success of the data solution(s).

• Serves as steward for data product, providing end-to-end subject matter expertise, including related up- and downstream systems and processes.

• Acts as governance advocate, ensuring data metrics are understood and leveraged as intended by business users. Responsible for ongoing data accuracy, including defect reporting. prioritization and resolution.

• Assists in the governance of all data access requests and has final right of refusal for accesses.

• Defines, prioritizes and grooms the agile delivery team's product backlog to ensure continuous delivery, as well as develops, prioritizes and manages epics and user stories for the development team.

May perform other responsibilities as assigned. ​

Reporting Relationships: Reports to Manager, Director or AVP Data Leader.

Typical Skills and Experiences: 

Education: Undergraduate studies in computer science, management information systems, business, statistics, math, a related field or comparable experience and education strongly preferred.  Graduate studies in business, statistics, math, computer science or a related field are a plus.

License/Certification/Designation: Certifications are not required, CSPO, SAFe POPM, PSPO or equivalent designation preferred.

Experience: Five to eight years of relevant experience delivering Technology enabled business solutions.  Experience leading small to medium-scale initiatives across business and technology teams. Experience with product roadmap development, prioritizing business cases, SQL and Python preferred. Insurance/financial services industry knowledge a plus.

Knowledge, Abilities and Skills:  Data application and practices knowledge. Sound decision making. Strong oral and written communication skills. Strong analytical skills with high attention to detail and accuracy. Ability to prioritize, facilitate large meetings, influence senior leaders, resolve conflict, negotiate and coach others.

Other criteria, including leadership skills, competencies and experiences may take precedence.

Staffing exceptions to the above must be approved by the hiring manager’s leader and HR Business Partner.

Values:  Regularly and consistently demonstrates the Nationwide Values.

Job Conditions: 

Overtime Eligibility: Exempt (Not Eligible)

Working Conditions: Normal office environment.

ADA:  The above statements cover what are generally believed to be principal and essential functions of this job.  Specific circumstances may allow or require some people assigned to the job to perform a somewhat different combination of duties. 

Benefits

We have an array of benefits to fit your needs, including: medical/dental/vision, life insurance, short and long term disability coverage, paid time off with newly hired associates receiving a minimum of 18 days paid time off each full calendar year pro-rated quarterly based on hire date, nine paid holidays, 8 hours of Lifetime paid time off, 8 hours of Unity Day paid time off, 401(k) with company match, company-paid pension plan, business casual attire, and more. To learn more about the benefits we offer, click here.

Nationwide is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive culture where everyone feels challenged, appreciated, respected and engaged. Nationwide prohibits discrimination and harassment and affords equal employment opportunities to employees and applicants without regard to any characteristic (or classification) protected by applicable law.

Smoke-Free Iowa Statement: Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, its affiliates and subsidiaries comply with the Iowa Smokefree Air Act. Smoking is prohibited in all enclosed areas on or around company premises as well as company issued vehicles. The company offers designated smoking areas in which smoking is permitted at each individual location. The Act prohibits retaliation for reporting complaints or violations. For more information on the Iowa Smokefree Air Act, individuals may contact the Smokefree Air Act Helpline at 888-944-2247.