Product Owner : Contracts, Rights & Royalties

Description

We are seeking an experienced and detail-oriented Product Owner to manage the product backlog for Contracts, Rights & Royalties within our bibliographic system. This role is a key position within a strategic program that is delivering critical improvements to royalties processes and optimize associated functionality for users.

The focus of this role will be on day-to-day management and prioritization of the product backlog in close partnership with business teams, refining and clarifying requirements, and ensuring the highest priority items are ready for development. You act as a bridge between business stakeholders and development teams, working closely with the wider bibliographic product team and management to feed priority developments for Contracts, Rights & Royalties into the broader product roadmap. You will ensure that the backlog reflects the highest-value opportunities to address business needs and drive the program's success.

This is an exciting opportunity for someone who thrives at the intersection of business and technology and is passionate about delivering targeted solutions for critical publishing processes.

What You’ll Do : Backlog Management :

Take full ownership of the Contracts, Rights & Royalties product backlog, ensuring all items are clearly defined, prioritized, and aligned with the program's objectives.

Regularly review and refine the backlog by collaborating with business stakeholders to clarify needs, determine priorities, and assess impacts.

Work closely with development teams to ensure backlog items are ready for development, with user stories and acceptance criteria clearly defined.

Work closely with Product Manager and third party to capture in the backlog any functionality changes, enhancements and bug fixes released as part of routine software updates, and assess their impact on the business.

Requirements Refinement :

Engage with business teams to translate their ideas and issues into actionable and detailed requirements, with a focus on solving specific problems and delivering value.

Facilitate requirements-gathering workshops, ensuring all stakeholders are heard and their needs effectively captured.

Ensure all requirements are broken down into clearly defined deliverables, including use cases, user stories, and acceptance criteria.

Stakeholder Engagement :

Act as a point of contact for business users from the Contracts, Rights & Royalties teams, ensuring their feedback and priorities are reflected in backlog development.

Provide regular updates to stakeholders on the status of backlog items, progress through the delivery pipeline, and any risks or challenges.

Effectively manage stakeholder expectations regarding timelines, resource constraints, and functionality priorities.

Delivery Coordination :

Work closely with development teams to groom backlog items, ensuring they have sufficient clarity for inclusion in upcoming sprints.

Participate actively in Agile ceremonies, such as sprint planning, reviews, and retrospectives, to represent the business’s priorities and ensure alignment across teams.

Resolve ambiguity and make decisions on behalf of the business to maintain smooth progression within development pipelines.

Continuous Improvement :

Use system analytics and user feedback to highlight opportunities for further enhancement of the Contracts, Rights & Royalties functionality.

Ensure all solutions align with business workflows and best practices for rights, contracts, and royalties management.

What You’ll Bring :

A proven ability to manage and prioritize a complex backlog, ensuring alignment with business needs and technical feasibility.

Strong analytical and problem-solving skills to translate business challenges into actionable requirements.

Exceptional organization and attention to detail to effectively manage a variety of competing priorities.

Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to engage constructively with diverse stakeholders across business and technical teams.

A collaborative and proactive approach to produce clear deliverables and fuel an efficient development pipeline.

A working knowledge or familiarity with rights, contracts, and royalties processes is highly desirable, and a strong attention to detail that this functional area demands

Ideal Experience / Education :

Bachelor’s degree in Business, IT, Publishing, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.

Certification in Agile frameworks or Product Ownership (e.g., Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), SAFe Product Owner / Product Manager) is desirable.

Proven experience as a Product Owner or similar role, with a focus on backlog management and requirements refinement.

Previous experience working with publishing systems, particularly in contracts, rights, and royalties areas, is highly advantageous (knowledge of Biblio would be ideal).

Strong background in gathering and translating business requirements into clear, deliverable items for software development teams.

Practical experience prioritizing and delivering enhancements in a backlog-driven Agile environment.

Prior experience working with SaaS platforms and third party development teams is a plus.

Familiarity with Agile delivery tools (e.g., Jira, Confluence, or similar).

This role will have an annual salary of $105,000-$119,000.

Macmillan Publishers is the U.S. trade company that is part of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, a large family-owned group of media companies headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. Holtzbrinck Publishing Group's publishing companies include prominent imprints around the world that publish a broad range of award-winning books for children and adults in all categories and formats.

U.S. publishers include Celadon Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Flatiron Books, Henry Holt & Company, Macmillan Audio, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, The St. Martin's Publishing Group, and Tor Publishing Group. In the UK, Australia, India, and South Africa, companies in the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group publish under the Pan Macmillan name. The German publishing company, Holtzbrinck Deutsche Buchverlage, includes among its imprints S. Fischer, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Rowohlt, and Droemer Knaur.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are actively seeking job applicants who reflect a broad representation of differences, including race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity / expression, physical ability, neurodiversity, age, family status, economic background and status, geographical background and status, and perspective. We believe that the best companies reflect the incredible diversity in viewpoints, backgrounds, and identities of the world in their staffs, and are committed to inclusive hiring across departments and levels. The successful candidate for this position will be an employee of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.

Equal Opportunity Employer

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