Sr. Technical Product Owner - AI / ML & Agentic Systems

Job Description

Job Description

Speridian Technologies is recruiting for a Senior Technical Product Owner - AI / ML for our State of California Client, the Department of Healthcare Services, Behavioral Health. This person will be part of a long-term, fully budgeted, state-of-the-art, extremely vast technical modernization project working with a variety of cross-functional teams and stakeholders.

This is a remote role; however, there will be meetings in the Sacramento area several times a year.  Candidates are expected to work business hours, Monday-Friday, Pacific Time Zone.

Join DHCS’s Behavioral Health Transformation : Where Purpose Meets Innovation

Location :  Remote

Department :  Department of Healthcare Services (DHCS), Behavioral Health Transformation (BHT)

Commitment :  Full-Time Consultant (W2 employee of Speridian or 1099 / IC for Speridian)

Why DHCS?

At DHCS we are leading a transformative journey in Behavioral Health, reshaping systems and services to ensure better outcomes for communities across California. Our Behavioral Health transformation initiative is more than a project—it’s a movement to make California a leader in accessible, high-quality health services. We’re setting the stage for a new era of government services built on agile methodologies, cutting-edge technology, continuous improvement, and a relentless commitment to serving the public good.

At DHCS, we’re looking for innovators who are passionate about purposeful work and excited by the opportunity to drive lasting change through innovative solutions.

Our core values are what make us successful and define the impact we have on the DHCS program and California’s citizens.

• Partnership :   Respect Other, Practice Empathy, Earn Trust
• Ownership :     Take Accountability, Show Reliability, Act with Integrity
• Grit :    Bring Passion, Exhibit Perseverance, Demonstrate Resilience
• Value :    Drive Outcomes, Maximize Impact, Keep Improving

Description

The Product Owner for AI / ML & Agentic Systems leads the development and delivery of intelligent, autonomous, and scalable AI solutions that power next-generation digital services. This role is pivotal in shaping how AI agents, large language models (LLMs), and machine learning systems are integrated into DHCS workflows to drive measurable outcomes.

As part of a cross-functional AI team, including Product Managers, human-centered design (HCD), engineers, policy experts, and county stakeholders, the Product Owner will translate strategic goals and user needs into actionable backlogs, orchestrate the delivery of AI-powered features, and ensure alignment with ethical AI principles, data governance, and enterprise architecture standards.

This role requires deep experience in AI / ML product delivery, a strong grasp of various AI paradigms, and the ability to guide teams through the complexities of building and deploying intelligent systems in real-world environments. Responsibilities

Lead with full accountability for the teams'' backlog in this area. This includes not only maintaining the backlog but owning its strategic direction and ensuring it reflects the evolving priorities of the Behavioral Health Transformation (BHT) initiative.

Backlog Ownership & Prioritization

Own and manage the AI / ML product backlog, including GenAI and Agentic AI use cases.

Translate business problems into AI opportunities and actionable user stories with clear acceptance criteria tied to measurable outcome.

Prioritize backlog items to align with BHT objectives, compliance deadlines, and user value, while balancing short-term delivery needs with long-term platform scalability.

Ensure features align with business value, model performance, ethical risk, and technical feasibility.

Facilitate backlog grooming, refinement and planning sessions with cross-functional teams.

Ensure clarity, feasibility, and alignment across engineering, HCD, and policy stakeholders.

Act as the primary link between legal, policy, technical, and user domains. Translate complex requirements into actionable epics, features, and user stories with clear acceptance criteria and measurable outcomes.

Proactively manage delivery risks, identify cross-team dependencies, and ensure the team is consistently focused on the highest-value work.

Serve as the authoritative voice on what gets built, when, and why. Own the product narrative from Product Management and delivery outcomes from discovery through deployment.

Strategic Alignment & Delivery

Active Partnership with Product Manager to define and evolve the product roadmap for AI / ML capabilities, retrieval augmentation, autonomous agents, generative and predictive models.

Collaborate with Product Managers to define and track objectives and key results (OKRs)

Align delivery with capability OKRs, AI governance frameworks, and responsible AI principles.

Partner with AI / ML engineering leads to ensure model lifecycle management, from experimentation to deployment and monitoring.

Ensure delivery timelines align with BHT milestones and federal interoperability requirements.

Partner with Agile Delivery Managers to manage sprint cadence, burn rate, and resource allocation.

AI / ML Platform & Solution Development

Guide the development of AI-powered features such as :

Agentic workflows for autonomous task execution

Natural language interfaces and copilots

Predictive analytics and decision support tools

Retrieval-augmented & Generative workflows

AI-enhanced data pipelines and feedback loops

Ensure solutions are scalable, explainable, and aligned with DHCS / BHT architecture and data privacy standards.

Collaborate with MDE teams to support continuous integration and delivery of AI models.

Stakeholder & Policy Integration

Review discovery workshops, designs and interviews from the Operational Capability area to identify high-impact AI use cases align with Epics, stories and acceptance criteria.

Serve as the bridge between business stakeholders and technical teams.

Ensure AI solutions are human-centered, accessible, and aligned with user intent and workflows.

Champion the voice of the user in AI product decisions, especially in high-stakes or regulated workflows.

Facilitate feedback loops from frontline users and route feature requests appropriately.

Metrics & Continuous Improvement

Define and track success metrics.

Use analytics to drive backlog prioritization and product enhancements.

Lead discovery and prototyping efforts to validate new features.

Promote a culture of continuous learning, iteration, and user-centered design.

Collaboration & Leadership

Lead agile ceremonies and foster cross-functional collaboration across engineering, HCD, policy, and delivery teams.

Champion the voice of care workers, program and county users in product decisions.

Act as a thought leader in AI / ML product strategy, agentic system design, and responsible innovation in collaboration with engineering partners

Evangelize AI capabilities across the organization and support change management efforts.

Stay current on emerging AI trends, tools, and regulatory developments.

Qualifications

DHCS is recruiting for skills that reflect the broader leadership, systems thinking, and cross-functional coordination required for this role, especially given the legal sensitivity and statewide scope of an AIL / ML platform or application.

Experience

7+ years in product ownership or technical product management, with 3+ years focused on AI / ML or data science products.

Proven experience delivering AI / ML solutions in production, including LLMs, GenAI, or autonomous agents.

Experience working with cross-functional teams including data scientists, ML engineers, and UX researchers.

Familiarity with MLOps, model governance, and AI observability tools.

Experience in regulated industries (e.g., healthcare, finance, public sector) is a plus.

Skills

Ability to assess and manage product risk across legal, technical, and operational domains

Proficient in managing Agile workflows using Atlassian tools such as Jira, Confluence, and Bitbucket for backlog management, documentation, and collaboration.

Experience with AWS AI / ML services, including SageMaker, Bedrock, Comprehend, Rekognition, and Lex, as well as integration with AWS data pipelines and security frameworks.

Skill in navigating ambiguity and making decisions with incomplete information

Ability to synthesize user research, policy analysis, and technical constraints into cohesive product direction

Familiarity with data governance principles and consent lifecycle management

Experience coordinating go-to-market strategies for public-facing or field-deployed applications

Additional Preferred Skills

Ability to assess and manage product risk across legal, technical, and operational domains

Skill in navigating ambiguity and making decisions with incomplete information

Ability to synthesize user research, policy analysis, and technical constraints into cohesive product direction

Comfort working with executive stakeholders and presenting complex topics in plain language

Experience with prompt engineering, or agent orchestration frameworks.

Knowledge of ethical AI principles, bias mitigation, and explainability techniques.

Certification in Agile Product Ownership.

Background in data science, computer science, or a related technical field.

Speridian is an Equal Opportunity Employer

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