Product Owner

Product Owner role at Makai Labs, Massachusetts with remote options.

Location: Massachusetts (remote). Salary: USD 120,000 - 130,000 per year. Minimum experience: 5 years.

Responsibilities

• Manage the product backlog, maintaining clear, current, and actionable priorities.
• Lead Agile ceremonies including backlog grooming, sprint planning, daily stand-ups, and retrospectives.
• Monitor progress toward goals and provide transparent updates to stakeholders.
• Direct testing and validation to ensure features meet defined acceptance criteria.
• Collaborate with UX UI designers to ensure the user experience aligns with business intent.
• Document, analyze, and iterate based on user feedback and performance metrics.

Requirements

• 5+ years in a Product Owner or equivalent role.
• Strong understanding of Scrum and Agile product delivery.
• Proven track record writing clear, detailed user stories and functional specs.
• Excellent communication and documentation skills, responsive and concise.
• Highly organized and proactive with strong follow-through.
• Experience working cross-functionally in fast-moving or startup environments.
• Familiarity with Jira, Confluence, and Figma preferred.

Technologies

• Jira
• Confluence
• Figma

Benefits

• Fully remote role in the Eastern time zone
• Opportunities to work in-person with local colleagues
• Generous PTO
• Flexible work schedule
• Free health insurance
• 401(k) matching
• Career growth and development opportunities

About Makai

Makai uses best-in-class AI and data to solve real-world operational and strategic challenges at scale. We assist businesses with enterprise automation, human-machine teaming, product design and development, and market intelligence. Makai designs solutions that adapt to people because technology will never be 100 percent accurate; people remain essential for successful human-machine collaboration.

About the Role

Makai Labs seeks a Product Owner with a strong sense of ownership, urgency, and communication. You will translate business strategy into actionable development work, manage product backlogs, define clear user stories, and ensure engineering and design teams have what they need to execute efficiently. The ideal candidate is detail-oriented, thrives in fast-paced environments, and excels at keeping cross-functional teams aligned through crisp documentation.

The ideal candidate will be able to

• Collaborate with stakeholders and product managers to define and prioritize product features and user stories.
• Write detailed specs, acceptance criteria, and documentation that remove ambiguity and guide development.
• Analyze and document business requirements, ensuring that technical teams understand the why behind every feature.
• Communicate proactively, especially through email and asynchronous channels, to keep teams aligned and informed.
• Identify opportunities for process improvement and efficiency across teams and workflows.
• Balance urgency with precision to ensure high quality execution under tight timelines.

NICE-TO-HAVES

• Experience with SaaS, AI, or ML contexts
• Experience with product marketing and crafting go-to-market strategies

CORE VALUES FOR MAKAI EMPLOYEES

• Flexible, innovative, and creative thinking
• Congenial and a team player
• Self-sufficient
• Self-driven with an ownership mentality
• Strong work ethic