Product Owner

Why FCS Financial? Ever dreamed of being part of an organization with deep roots in agriculture and the community? For over 100 years, as part of the Farm Credit System, we've been supporting agriculture and rural communities in Missouri. If you are passionate about delivering impactful lending solutions and bridging business needs with technology, this is your opportunity to make a lasting impact!

About the Role: As Product Owner, you will be responsible for defining, prioritizing, and delivering product capabilities across the lending lifecycle. You'll own the product backlog and roadmap, translating stakeholder needs, regulatory requirements, and market insights into high-value solutions. This role ensures delivery is aligned, measurable, and supports efficient, compliant, and scalable lending operations.

What We Offer:

• Competitive Salary: $80,000 - $130,000 with outstanding incentive opportunities linked to Association performance.
• Growth Opportunities: Opportunities to lead strategic initiatives and shape lending technology direction.
• Comprehensive Benefits: A highly competitive benefits package designed to support your health, financial well-being, and work-life balance.
• Flexible Work Environment: Hybrid options available within FCS Financial's Branch locations in Missouri.
• Collaborative Culture: Work closely with lending, risk, compliance, and technology teams to deliver impactful solutions.

What You'll Do:

• Product Ownership: Own and manage the product roadmap and backlog for your product focus.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Partner with stakeholders to understand needs, prioritize work, and drive decision-making.
• Delivery Support: Collaborate with development teams in Agile ceremonies to ensure successful delivery.
• Release & Adoption: Support UAT, release readiness, training, and rollout coordination.
• Risk & Compliance: Incorporate regulatory, risk, and control requirements into product design and priorities.
• Continuous Improvement: Use data, feedback, and operational insights to enhance product performance

What You Bring:

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Systems, Finance, or related field (or equivalent experience)
• Experience: 3+ years of product owner or product management experience within the lending lifecycle.

Technical Strengths & Skills:

• Strong understanding of lending lifecycle processes and credit operations.
• Experience with vendor-supported SaaS or loan origination/CRM platforms.
• Ability to translate business needs, regulatory requirements, and technical capabilities into prioritized backlogs .
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and drive alignment across cross-functional teams.
• Familiarity with risk, audit, and compliance practices in financial services.

This position is open until filled.

Candidates must reside in Missouri to be considered for this position.

Preferred office location is Jefferson City, MO. All other Missouri FCS Financial Branch Locations will be considered.

This position is classified as Exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Hybrid work environment and flexible work schedule will be considered based on the candidate's qualifications and business needs.

Department: Information Services

Reports To: Product Manager

Supervises: None

Job Functions

45%

Product Leadership - Roadmap, Backlog & Product Definition Enablement

• Own product feature definition and roadmap execution for an assigned product area, informed by stakeholder needs, business priorities, and market dynamics
• Facilitate discovery and product definition activities, including stakeholder interviews, user feedback sessions, and journey exploration to identify problems, pain points, and intended outcomes
• Map and refine user journeys to identify improvement opportunities and inform feature design and prioritization
• Define epics and user stories with clear, testable acceptance criteria to guide delivery
• Establish expected business outcomes and success measures for product features and enhancements
• Incorporate insights from market, vendor, and ecosystem trends into actionable product and roadmap options
• Evaluate, prioritize, and sequence capabilities using structured, transparent approaches that balance value, risk, effort, dependencies, and timing
• Ensure regulatory, risk, and ICFR considerations are incorporated into product definition and prioritization
• Partner with Delivery and stakeholders to assess vendor roadmap items, releases, and upgrades for business impact and operational readiness
• Define business readiness expectations for releases, including documentation, knowledge transfer, and Service Desk enablement

25%

Stakeholder Partnership

• Partner with stakeholders to understand needs, define priorities, and align on intended outcomes
• Facilitate decision-making and trade-off discussions; document decisions, owners, and timelines
• Communicate roadmap and delivery status, risks, and dependency impacts to appropriate audiences
• Incorporate operational feedback (e.g., issues, trends, root causes) into product priorities
• Contribute to user enablement and adoption readiness for releases, including training coordination, communications, and rollout planning in partnership with stakeholders and Delivery

15%

Delivery, Integrations & Execution

• Participate in Agile ceremonies to clarify intent, priorities, and acceptance criteria during delivery
• Ensure priorities consider end-to-end customer and employee journeys and cross-system impacts
• Partner with delivery teams and shared services (engineering, QA, architecture, integration, platform teams) to align on scope, sequencing, and dependencies
• Accept completed work against defined acceptance criteria and support business and control sign-offs occur
• Support UAT planning and defect triage in partnership with stakeholders and Delivery
• Coordinate deployment readiness and release execution activities in partnership with Delivery teams
• Partner with application development and technical operations teams to evaluate technical trade-offs and scalability considerations
• Ensure product decisions consider system performance, reliability, and technical debt implications

5%

Product Governance, Risk & Controls

• Incorporate applicable policy, regulatory, and control requirements into product priorities and acceptance criteria
• Partner with Compliance, Security, Risk, and Audit stakeholders to support governance and readiness needs
• Ensure appropriate documentation, approvals, and traceability are maintained for product releases
• Support remediation of findings, issues, or control gaps related to the product area
• Use operational, audit, and incident insights to inform product improvements

n/a

Other duties as assigned to meet the needs of the organization

* Essential Functions for this position consist of all items listed under any category that make up 5% or more of the job duties. This job description is subject to change without notice.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Systems, Finance, or related field, or equivalent experience
• 3 years of product owner or product management experience across the lending lifecycle
• Or an equivalent combination of education and experience sufficient to perform the essential functions of the job.

Required Knowledge and Skills

• Experience delivering outcomes on vendor-supported SaaS, configuration-heavy platforms (e.g., CRM/loan origination platforms such as nCino/Salesforce (preferred, not required), including rules/workflow/permissions configuration, coordinating impacts across integrated platforms, and managing dependencies through release governance.
• Experience participating in vendor and platform run-cost decisions (e.g., licensing, renewals, support models), including basic TCO analysis and cost/value trade-offs.
• Familiarity with financial institution risk management, audit/exam processes, and control documentation through prior participation or exposure.
• Ability to translate stakeholder needs, regulatory/control requirements, and vendor/platform capabilities into a prioritized backlog aligned to measurable business outcomes.
• Strong analytical, facilitation, relationship management, and influence skills to drive decisions across business and technical stakeholders with clear oral and written communication.
• Working knowledge of lending lifecycle process and practices
• Excellent problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills;
• Ability to translate complex data concepts into business-friendly insights
• Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously and meet deadlines

We are an Equal Employment/Affirmative Action employer. We do not discriminate in hiring on the basis of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religious creed, national origin, physical or mental disability, protected Veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.

If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please contact us by email at Human.Resources@myfcsfinancial.com and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information. Requests for accommodation will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Please note that only inquiries concerning a request for reasonable accommodation will be responded to from this e-mail address.

For more information about our commitment to equal employment opportunity, please click here.