Product Owner

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. is hiring a Product Owner to connect annuity operations, product, compliance, and technology. In this onsite role in Des Moines, IA, you will own the product backlog for core operations platforms and work with engineering, architects, and vendors to translate regulatory and business needs into technical deliverables. You will also shape how teams plan, validate, and release changes so operations is ready and value is measurable after launch.

What you’ll do

• Own the product vision, roadmap, and prioritized backlog for operations platforms, covering both BAU and strategic initiatives.
• Prioritize work based on business value, risk, deadlines, and cost.
• Lead sprint planning, backlog refinement, and sprint reviews, and accept or reject completed work against agreed criteria.
• Escalate cross-platform conflicts and significant scope changes when they arise.
• Collect requirements through workshops, process and customer journey mapping, design thinking sessions, and data review.
• Translate business needs into build-ready artifacts, including user stories, acceptance criteria, process flows, business rules, and data requirements, with traceability through design, test, and release.
• Define integration points between insurance systems and feeds to distributors, custodians, reinsurers, and finance and accounting systems.
• Partner with architects, engineers, and vendors on solution design aligned to business intent, control standards, and integration needs.
• Define test strategies, including end-to-end testing across platforms and edge cases such as contract provisions, rider behavior, and tax and withholding rules.
• Lead user acceptance testing and support go/no-go decisions.
• Coordinate release planning, training, procedure updates, and change management so operations teams are prepared at launch.
• Vet upstream and downstream impacts, and support regression and end-to-end testing.
• Track post-release performance and delivered value, drive continuous improvement, and identify automation and AI-enabled opportunities.
• Follow the firm’s SDLC, change management, and audit standards, and identify operational risks early with mitigations.
• Serve as the primary business point of contact for technology teams, vendors, stakeholders, and third-party administrators; participate in vendor teams and industry forums; and report on delivery progress and risks.
• Set communication cadence and align on expectations for transparency on priorities and roadmaps with constituents and leadership.

What you bring

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience.
• Life insurance or annuity operations experience preferred.
• Experience writing user stories, functional specifications, and acceptance criteria for technical teams using Agile methodologies (Scrum or Kanban), including tools such as Jira.
• Strong analytical skills, including process mapping and working with data (familiarity with XML/JSON; SQL a plus), with sound judgment to prioritize using data.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to explain complex topics to both business and technical audiences.
• Ownership mindset, attention to detail, integrity, and a bias for action, with the ability to spot risks early and escalate at the right time.
• Comfort using AI-powered tools to improve productivity and quality of work.
• Curiosity about and openness to adopting emerging AI technologies in day-to-day workflows.
• Ability to critically evaluate AI-generated outputs for accuracy and relevance.

Technologies you’ll work with

• Agile methodologies (Scrum or Kanban)
• Jira
• XML
• JSON
• SQL

Base salary range: $75,000 - $105,000 USD per year.