Technical Product Owner, Data Management & Operations

At Cengage, our employees have a direct impact in helping learners around the world discover the power and joy of learning. We are bonded by our shared purpose – driving innovation that helps millions of learners improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education.

Make an impact by connecting business and technology needs with the data capabilities that drive Cengage.

In the role of Technical Product Owner for Data Management & Operations, you will partner with Data Engineering leaders and teams leading data operations across Cengage. You will direct priority setting, transform detailed data needs into feasible technical specifications, and help ensure the delivery and ongoing enhancement of dependable, scalable, and well-controlled data capabilities.

This position lies at the crossroads of data engineering, architecture, governance, operations, and the groups that use enterprise data. You will bring product ownership experience and subject matter knowledge to assist Cengage in improving the acquisition, integration, transformation, management, monitoring, and accessibility of data for business and technology objectives.

What You’ll Do

• Collaborate with Data Management & Operations leadership to develop functional strategy, priorities, roadmaps, and investment plans.
• Turn strategy into a consistent portfolio of initiatives, capabilities, operational developments, and technology investments.
• Evaluate emerging business and technology needs, find opportunities and gaps, and develop recommendations.
• Help establish and maintain multi-year roadmaps.
• Provide leadership with access to portfolio health, competing priorities, capacity constraints, dependencies, risks, and decisions requiring attention.

• Act as a reliable liaison with business and technology leaders.
• Develop a solid understanding of Cengage business strategies, processes, technology landscape, and data needs.
• Engage team members to frame business problems and desired outcomes.
• Translate sophisticated data concepts for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Represent leadership independently in forums and decision-making discussions.
• Build relationships across business functions and technology organizations.

• Partner with collaborators to shape and enable scalable data capabilities.
• Champion the adoption and steady refinement of data management methods.
• Drive adoption of data quality practices.
• Drive alignment with data governance policies, standards, and practices.
• Collaborate with technical teams to define clear business outcomes and requirements.
• Identify systemic gaps and opportunities across data processes.
• Encourage enterprise reuse and standardization.
• Assist in establishing criteria for success regarding data capabilities and initiatives.

• Drive execution of the portfolio, ensuring priorities translate into coordinated initiatives.
• Collaborate with program/project managers and technical teams to coordinate implementation.
• Maintain portfolio-level access to delivery progress.
• Ensure work entering delivery is sufficiently understood, prioritized, and aligned with outcomes.
• Make timely prioritization and tradeoff decisions.
• Provide product ownership and prioritization oversight for relevant backlogs.
• Work jointly with other TPOs and technology leaders on cross-platform initiatives.
• Support productive delivery approaches, clarity, answerability, and constant development.

• Collaborate with leadership and technical teams to set and track expectations for data capabilities.
• Use operational performance indicators to identify systemic improvement opportunities.
• Drive prioritization of initiatives that reduce operational burden, increase automation, and improve maintainability.
• Maintain a suitable balance among new capabilities, operational improvements, risk remediation, technical debt, and platform health.
• Provide leadership and coordination for significant cross-functional operational issues.
• Consistently advance Data Management & Operations workflows and indicators of success.

• Extensive background in technical product ownership, technology business collaboration, portfolio/program oversight, data management, data operations, business analysis, or a related technology role.
• Demonstrable experience working alongside data engineering teams and translating business and technical requirements into well-defined engineering assignments.
• Solid understanding of data engineering concepts, including data pipelines, ETL/ELT, data integration, data modeling, data storage, APIs, data warehouses/lakes/lakehouses, cloud data platforms, and batch and/or real-time data processing.
• Knowledge of data management areas including data quality, metadata, lineage, governance, security, access, and lifecycle management.
• Experience with operational elements of data platforms, including monitoring, reliability, incident management, performance, scalability, and service-level expectations.
• Proven capability to collaborate with senior leaders on strategy and convert strategic direction into actionable priorities.
• Experience representing a technology or data function with senior business and technology collaborators.
• Demonstrated experience managing sophisticated portfolios or roadmaps involving multiple initiatives, collaborators, dependencies, competing priorities, and constrained capacity.
• Solid foundational knowledge of enterprise data management and data governance.
• Experience with enterprise data platforms and applications; familiarity with Snowflake, SAP, Salesforce, or comparable technologies is preferred.
• Practical understanding of operational and analytical data modeling concepts.
• Strong analytical, systems-thinking, and problem-solving skills.
• Proven capability to grasp technical architecture and engineering compromises.
• Experience working across Agile and other technology delivery practices.
• Familiarity with SQL and/or Python is a plus.
• Familiarity with established data management frameworks and practices such as DAMA-DMBOK and/or CDMP certification is preferred.
• Experience contributing to technology investment planning, arguments, vendor evaluations, capacity planning, or other portfolio-level investment decisions is preferred.
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, Data Management, Business, or a similar field, or equivalent work experience.

Cengage is committed to working with broad talent pools to attract and hire strong and most qualified individuals. Our job applicants are considered regardless of any classification protected by applicable federal, state, provincial or local laws.

Cengage is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities including during our job application process. If you are an applicant with a disability and require reasonable accommodation in our job application process, please contact us at [email protected].

Cengage, a global education technology company serving millions of learners, provides affordable, quality digital products and services that equip students with the skills and competencies needed to be job ready. For more than 100 years, we have enabled the power and joy of learning with trusted, engaging content, and now, integrated digital platforms. We serve the higher education, workforce skills, secondary education, English language teaching and research markets worldwide. Through our scalable technology, including MindTap and Cengage Unlimited, we support all learners who seek to improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education.

Compensation

At Cengage Group, we take great pride in our commitment to providing a comprehensive and rewarding Total Rewards package designed to support and empower our employees. Click here to learn more about our Total Rewards Philosophy.

The full base pay range has been provided for this position. Individual base pay will vary based on work schedule, qualifications, experience, internal equity, and geographic location.  Sales roles often incorporate a significant incentive compensation program beyond this base pay range.

In this position,  you will be eligible to participate in the company’s discretionary incentive bonus program.  This position's bonus target amount, which is not guaranteed and is dependent on individual performance and overall company results among other factors, is provided below.