Senior Technical Product Owner

Caterpillar’s CAT Digital team is building and operating a state-of-the-art platform, and this Senior Technical Product Owner role is central to maximizing product value while supporting Scrum delivery. You will own the product vision, shape the backlog, and drive specification-led execution across complex, high-impact initiatives, with added emphasis on AI-enabled development and AWS architecture decisions.

What you will do

• Serve as the Product Owner for complex, high-value projects, focusing on maximizing product and Development Team outcomes.
• Own the product vision and communicate it to the team, including sprint goals established at the start of each sprint.
• Create, maintain, and prioritize the Product Backlog based on business value, and keep the team informed of priority changes.
• Make key decisions on product features, release dates, and release content.
• Partner with Lead Engineers to break epics and features into sprint-sized user stories.
• Produce clear, structured specifications, including requirements, acceptance criteria, and API contracts, aligned to spec-driven development practices.
• Drive AI-based software development by leveraging AI coding assistants and agents to accelerate delivery while maintaining quality.
• Contribute to AWS cloud architecture decisions with attention to scalability, security, and cost.
• Represent the customer and work with stakeholders to negotiate requirements and release dates, and to communicate team status.
• Lead Scrum ceremonies including daily scrum, sprint planning, backlog grooming, retrospectives, and demos.
• Own defect management by prioritizing issues and accepting or rejecting completed sprint work.
• Model Scrum values and support agile practices across the organization.

What you bring

• Experience as a technical product owner.
• Prior experience working with or leading a technical team while also managing multiple projects.
• Strong software development foundation with proven experience, including Java 17 or newer, RESTful APIs, databases, and AWS cloud development, with a focus on designing and building cloud-native solutions at scale.
• Experience managing product backlogs using Agile tools such as Azure DevOps, JIRA, Mingle, VSTS, Team Services, or Rally.
• Hands-on experience with AI-based software development tools such as GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, or similar, plus GenAI productivity tools such as Microsoft 365 Copilot.
• Experience with spec-driven development, including writing specifications (for example, PRDs, OpenAPI contracts, and Given/When/Then acceptance criteria) that guide implementation by development teams and AI agents.
• Working knowledge of AWS services including Lambda, API Gateway, ECS, EKS, S3, DynamoDB, RDS, and IAM; AWS certification such as Cloud Practitioner or Solutions Architect – Associate is a plus.

Technologies

• Java 17
• RESTful APIs
• AWS cloud
• Azure DevOps, JIRA, Mingle, VSTS, Team Services, Rally
• GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Microsoft 365 Copilot
• AI coding assistants, AI agents
• PRDs, OpenAPI contracts, Given/When/Then acceptance criteria
• AWS Lambda, API Gateway, ECS, EKS, S3, DynamoDB, RDS, IAM
• AWS Cloud Practitioner, AWS Solutions Architect – Associate

Compensation and location

Location: Chicago, IL (onsite). Salary range: USD 112,710 - 183,140 per year.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision benefits*
• Paid time off plan (Vacation, Holidays, Volunteer, etc.)*
• 401(k) savings plans*
• Health Savings Account (HSA)*
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs)*
• Health Lifestyle Programs*
• Employee Assistance Program
• Voluntary Benefits and Employee Discounts
• Career Development
• Incentive bonus
• Disability benefits
• Life Insurance
• Parental leave
• Adoption benefits
• Tuition Reimbursement

Additional details

• This position requires the candidate to be based in Chicago, IL.
• Relocation assistance is NOT available for this position.
• Visa sponsorship is NOT available for this position.
• Posting dates: November 11, 2026 - November 29, 2026.
• Any offer of employment is conditioned upon the successful completion of a drug screen.