Manager, Product Ownership

Overview

The Manager, Product Ownership, leads and oversees the Product Owner and User Interface/User Experience (UI/UX) functions within the Solution Delivery organization, ensuring business needs are consistently and precisely translated into clear requirements, effective product direction, and intuitive digital experiences across all delivery channels. This role partners closely with business stakeholders, development teams, and leadership to drive a cohesive product strategy, elevate user experience standards, and ensure that digital products deliver measurable value across Sun Communities' portfolio.

Job Duties

• Oversees and manages the Product Owner and UI/UX team members, providing coaching, mentorship, and career development guidance to build a high-performing team. (Essential)
• Ensures product quality, rigorous requirements, and business alignment across all agile delivery channels, serving as the central point of accountability for requirements governance. (Essential)
• Centralizes requirements gathering, documentation, and validation, ensuring consistent and thorough business requirements across all product initiatives. (Essential)
• Reviews and approves product roadmaps, feature prioritization, and release plans developed by Product Owners to ensure alignment with business goals and the technology strategy. (Essential)
• Establishes and enforces standards for user story creation, acceptance criteria, requirements documentation, release notes, product roadmap documentation, and agile development practices across all product teams, leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI). (Essential)
• Partners with UI/UX designers to establish and maintain design standards, ensuring intuitive, accessible, and elegant digital experiences across all Sun Communities products. (Essential)
• Coordinates team member selection and development and ensures team members comply with appropriate policies and procedures.
• Partners with business leaders across Sun to inform and gain buy-in on the product vision, strategy, features, budgets, and priorities.
• Drives stakeholder engagement by facilitating requirements workshops, sprint reviews, roadmap planning, and feedback sessions to ensure business needs are accurately captured and met.
• Monitors usage metrics, user feedback, and market trends to guide ongoing product enhancements and identify innovation opportunities.
• Develops and manages resource allocation, capacity planning, and workload balancing for Product Owner and UI/UX team members.
• Establishes and tracks team performance metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs), and quality benchmarks to drive continuous improvement.
• Drives AI-enabled process standardization and team efficiency by establishing standardized product management practices and reducing manual effort through governed, high-quality workflows.
• Coaches Product Owners to embed AI tools into daily activities, including requirements drafting, backlog management, analysis, reporting, and stakeholder communications.
• Elevates stakeholder engagement and outcome quality by leveraging AI tools to enhance stakeholder communications and synthesize feedback into actionable insights.
• Enables faster, data-informed prioritization through AI-driven analysis that improves the accuracy, business impact, and overall quality of team deliverables.
• Performs other duties as assigned.
• Collaborates with development leadership, Enterprise Delivery Leader, and business stakeholders to resolve cross-team dependencies, risks, and blockers.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Business, Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field (Required)
• Master's Degree in Business Administration, or a related field (Preferred)
• 7 years in experience in product management, business analysis, or digital product development (Required)
• 3 years in experience in a people management or team leadership role (Required)
• Experience in property management, real estate, or hospitality industry (Preferred)
• Must have a valid driver's license
• Deep expertise in requirements gathering, user story creation, road mapping, and agile development methodologies
• Proven ability to lead, mentor, and develop cross-functional teams including Product Owners and UX professionals
• Strong understanding of UI/UX design principles, user research methods, and design system best practices
• Familiarity with integration points among customer portals, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, and property management platforms
• Familiarity with web and mobile app development and platform best practices
• Excellent strategic thinking skills with proven ability to balance long-term vision with hands-on execution
• Strong collaboration and influencing skills with the ability to drive alignment across cross-functional teams
• Understanding of secure portal login experiences, digital payment tools, self-service workflows, and use of AI to enhance user experience