Senior Technical Product Owner, Data

The Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) is the statewide professional association for physicians and medical students, supporting 25,000 members. We are dedicated to educating and advocating for the physicians of Massachusetts and patients locally and nationally. A leadership voice in health care, the MMS contributes physician and patient perspectives to influence health-related legislation at the state and federal levels, works in support of public health, provides expert advice on physician practice management, and addresses issues of physician well-being. Under the auspices of NEJM Group, the MMS extends our mission globally by advancing medical knowledge from research to patient care through the New England Journal of Medicine, NEJM Evidence, NEJM AI, NEJM Catalyst, NEJM Clinician, and through our accredited and comprehensive continuing medical education programs.

The world has changed, and so has the way we work. The MMS has adopted a flexible work model that allows most employees to choose where they work – at home, onsite in our Waltham office, or a combination of the two – based on their preferences and our business needs. Because what matters is the work we do, not where we do it.

We are looking for a Senior Technical Product Owner, Data who can lead teams with confidence, make decisions in ambiguous situations, and drive execution across matrixed data teams. You will oversee a complex environment spanning mission-critical SQL Server systems and a growing portfolio of cloud-native database applications, ensuring alignment with organizational priorities and long-term strategy.

This is a highly technical product owner role. The right candidate will have hands-on experience as a database developer or engineer, including writing queries, building pipelines, modeling data, and understanding the technical complexity behind the work.

Responsibilities:

Product Ownership

• Own and maintain a prioritized product backlog for database development initiatives, balancing business value, technical debt, and platform reliability.
• Define and communicate a clear product vision and roadmap for the data platform, in alignment with organizational strategy.
• Write detailed, technically precise user stories, epics, and acceptance criteria that engineering teams can act on confidently.
• Make informed trade-off decisions on scope, quality, and delivery timelines.

Technical Leadership

• Serve as the primary liaison between database engineering teams and business stakeholders, translating complex technical concepts into clear business outcomes.
• Participate in architecture reviews, design discussions, and sprint ceremonies.
• Develop a strong understanding of the team's database technologies to credibly challenge and guide engineering decisions.
• Champion data quality, performance, and security standards across all database initiatives.
• Foster a collaborative, high-performing team environment by removing obstacles and supporting effective execution.
• Serve as a mentor to junior team members.
• Continuously seek opportunities to improve team processes within an agile environment.

Stakeholder Management

• Engage regularly with business partners, data consumers, and leadership to gather requirements and manage expectations.
• Drive alignment across cross-functional teams including data engineering, analytics, security, and infrastructure.
• Provide clear, regular reporting on roadmap progress, risks, and outcomes.

• Continuously seek opportunities to improve team processes within an agile environment.

Required Qualifications:

• A Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience. 8 years of experience in a Product Owner, Technical Product Manager, or equivalent role, with a meaningful portion supporting engineering or data platform teams.
• 2-3 years hands-on experience as a database developer, data engineer, or software engineer working directly with the technologies in this stack. Product ownership experience alone will not be sufficient; candidates must be able to speak with credibility from having built, not just managed.
• Deep, hands-on experience with Microsoft SQL Server including schema design, stored procedures, indexing strategies, and performance tuning in production environments.
• Working knowledge of cloud-based database platforms (e.g., Azure SQL, Snowflake, AWS RDS/Aurora) and the challenges of running both legacy and cloud systems in parallel.
• Demonstrated ability to lead without direct authority including driving decisions, resolving cross-team conflict, and pushing back on scope creep or technical drift without losing the room.
• Hands-on experience with Amazon Redshift for cloud data warehousing, including query optimization, distribution strategies, and workload management.
• Practical knowledge of data lake and lakehouse architectures — including storage layers, metadata management, and governance patterns (e.g., AWS S3/Glue, Delta Lake, or Apache Iceberg).
• Experience working with Power BI as a primary BI/reporting platform, including an understanding of data modeling, DAX, and how reporting requirements drive upstream database design decisions.
• Proven experience writing and refining backlogs in agile environments (Scrum, Kanban, or SAFe).
• Strong communication skills with the ability to engage credibly with both engineers and executives.
• Experience working in a scaled product environment with multiple development teams.
• Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), SAFe POPM, or equivalent certification.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading or contributing to a legacy-to-cloud migration (e.g., SQL Server to Azure SQL or Snowflake).
• Experience with data governance, data lineage, or regulatory compliance requirements (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2).
• Exposure to ELT/ETL pipelines and modern data stack tooling.
• Experience with tools such as Jira, Confluence, dbt, or similar.

Responsibilities:

1.Acts as the technical product owner for the Salesforce/Fonteva platform, defines priorities and desired outcomes; partners with administrators and technical teams to execute delivery. Serves as the voice of the platform, understanding capabilities, constraints, and best practices.

2.Supports validation of business processes and system configuration, ensuring alignment between intended outcomes and implemented solutions. Partners with Director of Business System Delivery and other IT leaders to identify gaps, risks, and decisions needed to move delivery forward. Refines and stabilizes backlog created during discovery and design phases. Ensures continuity between transformation activities and long-term product ownership.

3.Partners with AMR stakeholders to validate business processes (membership, group management, billing, advocacy engagement, renewals). Drives alignment on standardized processes to support out-of-the-box configuration and reduce customization. Ensures business decisions are clearly documented and translated into system behavior.

4.Creates and manages release plans and product roadmaps for Salesforce enhancements and maintenance. Aligns priorities across business and IT stakeholders. Balances delivery of new capabilities with platform stability and sustainability.

5.Translates validated business needs into clear, actionable user stories and acceptance criteria. Leads backlog grooming in close partnership with Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud administrators. Ensures stories are technically feasible, properly scoped, and aligned with platform best practices. Challenges proposed solutions and reinforces a configuration-first approach. Accounts for downstream impacts including reporting, integrations, and marketing/engagement needs.

6.Manages backlog, sprint planning, and release tracking (e.g., JIRA). Coordinates work across administrators, developers, data, QA, and integration teams. Ensures delivery teams have clarity to execute efficiently. Resolves ambiguity, manages priorities, and removes blockers to maintain delivery momentum.

7.Aligns business stakeholders around delivery goals while managing expectations with transparency. Facilitates discussions to surface trade-offs, dependencies, and required decisions. Communicates progress, risks, and release updates across business and IT teams.

8.Manages dependencies across integrated systems (e.g., UCC, CMS, data mart, advocacy tools, benefit systems, finance/accounting). Ensures seamless data flow across the member lifecycle. Partners with teams to maintain data consistency and reliability.

9.Partners with Marketing and the Marketing Cloud Administrator to define and prioritize campaign, segmentation, and journey requirements. Ensures Salesforce data structures support marketing use cases, including targeting and personalization.Validates that lifecycle events (joins, renewals, lapses, affiliations) trigger appropriate marketing and advocacy workflows.Collaborates on cross-channel member journeys spanning CRM, web, email, and advocacy platforms. Ensures requirements are clear and complete; does not execute campaigns directly.

10.In conjunction with business and IT leads, forecasts and manages platform costs as part of budget planning, when needed. Provides input on resources needed to support their assigned platform domain.

Qualifications:

·Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience required.

·Demonstrated experience in technical product ownership or project management, including software delivery and Agile methodologies.

·Minimum of 10 years of professional experience, with at least 5 years managing a CRM SaaS platform (preferably Salesforce) or comparable enterprise applications in a corporate environment. Experience in an association setting is highly desirable.

·Strong proficiency with Salesforce is preferred, including hands-on experience with Sales Cloud and/or Marketing Cloud. Experience with JIRA or similar Agile tools, and working with distributed or matrixed implementation teams, is a plus.

·Proven ability to translate business needs into actionable requirements, prioritize effectively, and drive delivery in complex environments.

·Strong problem-solving, leadership, and facilitation skills are essential.

·Must be able to manage competing priorities and high volumes of work while maintaining a calm, organized, and confident approach.

Compensation:

The target base pay for this role is $140,000-$150,000. Salary is commensurate with skills, qualifications, and experience.

Benefits:

Our generous benefits offerings include: 3 weeks of paid vacation, 6 personal days, 12 sick days, 13 paid holidays, medical and dental plans, 401(k) plans with company match, backup childcare assistance, tuition assistance and more!

The MMS has earned praise as one of theTop Places to Work in MassachusettsbyThe Boston Globe for the past 16 years in a row! The Globe surveys employees regarding their opinions about company leadership, benefits, ethics, values and culture, and recognizes those companies who receive high marks from their employees.

The MMS is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to providing opportunities to veterans and people with disabilities and a work environment that is welcoming to all.