Product Owner SME

Apogee Engineering, LLC supports mission-critical software modernization and SMPES capability development for the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center and USSTRATCOM/J56. This onsite role at Offutt AFB, Nebraska is focused on strengthening product delivery by translating operational needs into clear requirements artifacts, helping teams plan and test effectively, and keeping stakeholders aligned from backlog through fielding.

What you’ll do

• Support the SMPES Product Owner by helping define and prioritize product backlogs.
• Translate operational needs into use case diagrams, use case descriptions, activities, diagrams, and operational scenarios.
• Coordinate with users, requirements managers, program managers, and development teams to clarify requirements and priorities.
• Conduct requirements elicitation with users, operators, requirements managers, and PMO personnel.
• Refine operational scenarios, problem sets, need statements, and related requirements artifacts with users.
• Participate in agile delivery activities, including Product Owner standups, sprint-ahead planning, executive sprint reviews, and backlog reviews.
• Lead or support recurring backlog reviews, prioritization sessions, and release-planning activities.
• Validate backlog accuracy and ensure operationally focused language, while identifying dependencies and risks and aligning candidate work to operational priorities.
• Coordinate near-term actions by identifying impediments and dependencies, and synchronizing requirements, development, testing, usability, and fielding activities.
• Work with users and testing organizations to support capability demonstrations, usability sessions, operational assessments, and fielding activities.
• Train functional managers, requirements managers, and other stakeholders on backlog prioritization, requirements documentation, and the use of collaboration tools.
• Escalate issues that require leadership awareness, decisions, advocacy, or cross-organizational coordination.
• Track feature progress to support timely delivery and prepare capability updates, reports, and stakeholder briefings.
• Ensure mission goals, priorities, and technical execution remain aligned.

What you bring

• US citizenship
• Ability to possess and maintain a TS/SCI eligibility
• Bachelor’s degree
• Minimum of 5 years supporting the DoW
• Proven ability to translate operational or mission needs into written requirements, including use cases, scenarios, workflows, or similar capability-development artifacts.
• Experience using Jira and Confluence (or comparable tools) for backlog management, requirements traceability, status reporting, and stakeholder coordination.
• Experience facilitating meetings with both technical and nontechnical stakeholders, resolving competing priorities, dependencies, and delivery risks.
• Strong written and oral communication, including briefing senior leaders and creating concise decision-support products.
• Ability to analyze user feedback and operational observations to recommend practical capability improvements.
• Ability to work independently while coordinating across a broad stakeholder network.

Helpful background

• Experience as a Product Owner, product manager, or operational requirements lead.
• Experience supporting agile software development processes, release planning, usability assessments, capability demonstrations, and operational fielding.
• Experience in mission planning, targeting, command and control, operational planning, or another directly relevant mission domain.
• Experience improving requirements management and capability delivery processes.
• Experience delivering stakeholder training on requirements methods, collaboration tools, or backlog management practices.

Logistics

• Location: Offutt AFB, Nebraska
• On-site: Full-time, on-site duties
• Travel: Up to 10%