Associate Product Owner

Lee Enterprises is seeking a motivated and detail-oriented Associate Product Owner to join our team and help drive the delivery of high-impact solutions. The Associate Product Owner will serve as the primary liaison between stakeholders and the development team, ensuring the product backlog is well-defined, prioritized, and aligned with business objectives. You'll play a critical role in translating requirements into actionable user stories and ensuring the team delivers maximum value in each sprint.

Key Responsibilities:

• Support the management and prioritization of the product backlog under the guidance of senior Product Owners and business leaders.
• Assist in gathering and documenting business requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria.
• Partner with stakeholders to understand business needs and translate them into actionable work items.
• Participate in Agile ceremonies including sprint planning, daily standups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.
• Collaborate with development teams to clarify requirements and answer questions during sprint execution.
• Help maintain backlog health and ensure work items are sufficiently defined before development begins.
• Track progress, identify risks or blockers, and escalate issues as appropriate.
• Assist with user acceptance testing (UAT) and validation of completed functionality.
• Support product documentation and communication efforts using Jira, Confluence, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Learn and apply Agile and Product Management best practices.

Qualifications:

• 0-3 years of experience in Product Management, Business Analysis, Project Coordination, Software Development, or a related field.
• Bachelors degree in Business, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related discipline preferred.
• Basic understanding of Agile/Scrum methodologies.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Ability to work collaboratively with technical and non-technical teams.
• Familiarity with Jira, Confluence, Microsoft Office, or similar tools preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to learn quickly and adapt in a fast-paced environment.

Preferred Traits:

• Curious and eager to learn.
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Customer-focused mindset.
• Self-motivated with a willingness to take ownership of assigned work.
• Comfortable asking questions and seeking clarification when needed.

Why Join Us?

Lee Enterprises offers competitive wages in a dynamic, interesting work environment with career growth opportunities. We offer an extensive benefit program that can be personalized to your needs. Our benefit program includes medical, dental, vision, short and long-term disability, company provided life insurance and supplemental life insurance. In addition, we offer a 401K retirement plan with company match. We also offer generous paid time off to allow the flexibility to balance personal life and work. This includes paid parental leave for new parents.

Lee Enterprises is a leading provider of local news and information and a major subscription and advertising platform, with daily and weekly newspapers and rapidly expanding digital products serving 114 markets across 25 states. Our core commitment is to provide valuable, intensely local news and information to the communities we serve.

Lee Enterprises is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We respect and celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

For more information about Lee, check us out at www.lee.net.