Senior Product Owner Coach

Speridian Technologies is recruiting for a Senior Product Owner Coach 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.

This is a remote role; however, there may 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

Senior Product Owner Coach
The Senior Product Owner Coach is responsible for advancing the maturity and effectiveness of Product Ownership across the organization by embedding Lean Delivery Principles, aligning work with business objectives, and maintaining healthy backlogs for predictable delivery. The Senior Product Owner Coach partners with leadership to define standards, measure success, and cultivate a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement. Through coaching and training, this position ensures Product Owners deliver maximum value to users and stakeholders while supporting organizational priorities.

Coaching:
Provide individualized and group coaching to Product Owners on backlog management, prioritization, stakeholder engagement, and agile practices.

• Deliver structured coaching on agile fundamentals, backlog refinement, Lean Delivery principles, and prioritization frameworks such as RICE and ETUL .
• Guide Product Owners through real-time challenges involving prioritization, technical trade-offs, and cross-team coordination.
• Support Product Owners in applying Human Centered Design (HCD) thinking, Lean Product Development, and Agile principles.
  • Outcome: Backlogs are consistently refined, prioritized, and aligned with strategic goals and business capabilities, enabling predictable delivery and improved product ownership practices.

Standards and Best Practices:

• Define and promote best practices for backlog management, stakeholder engagement, and user feedback loops.
• Develop and maintain coaching frameworks, playbooks, templates, and tools for product planning, risk logging, and release communication.
• Facilitate cross-team workshops and knowledge-sharing sessions to ensure consistent adoption of standards.
• Embed Lean Delivery principles and business capability alignment into backlog practices to support incremental value delivery.
  • Outcome: Consistent backlog management standards and capability alignment are applied across teams, resulting in improved predictability, transparency, and reduced last-minute changes.

Backlog Health and Refinement:

• Coach Product Owners on maintaining healthy backlogs that meet the Definition of Ready and support predictable delivery.
• Ensure regular refinement sessions for Epics and Stories to maintain clarity and alignment.
• Monitor backlog health and provide feedback on prioritization and alignment with roadmap and business capabilities.
  • Outcome: Backlogs remain transparent, actionable, and prioritized, supporting smooth sprint planning and reducing scope creep.

Cross-Team Alignment:

• Collaborate with Product Managers, Human Centered Design (HCD), and engineering leads to ensure alignment on priorities.
• Reinforce the Product Owner’s role in decision-making and value delivery.
  • Outcome: Roadmaps and sprint plans reflect shared priorities, reducing misalignment and improving delivery predictability.

Performance Management:

• Drive performance management framework for Product Owners.
• Clarify role expectations through standardized competency frameworks and role-specific performance indicators.
  • Outcome: Establish clear accountability and role expectations through standardized competencies and measurable metrics.

Qualifications:
Minimum 7 years in Agile product management and coaching roles, including at least 3 years coaching Product Owners and agile teams in large-scale organizations.

• Deep knowledge of agile frameworks (Scrum, SAFe) and product management principles.
• Strong facilitation, communication, and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Ability to design and implement structured learning programs and communities of practice.
• Experience in defining and governing product ownership standards across large organizations.

Skills:

• Strong understanding of Agile principles, methodologies, and frameworks (e.g., Scrum, Kanban, Lean).
• Strategic thinking and visionary leadership, with the ability to drive Agile transformation and organizational change.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence and build relationships at all levels of the organization.
• Coaching and mentoring skills, with the ability to empower individuals and teams to embrace Agile values and principles.
• Analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify and address challenges in Agile adoption and implementation.
• Change management skills, with the ability to manage resistance and drive cultural change in a complex organizational environment.

Technologies/Tools:

• Agile project management tools (e.g., Jira, Jira Align) for managing Agile processes, workflows, and metrics.
• Collaboration platforms (e.g., Slack, Microsoft Teams, Confluence) for communication and coordination with Agile teams and stakeholders.
• Agile assessment and coaching tools (e.g., Agile maturity assessments, coaching frameworks) for evaluating Agile capability and guiding transformation efforts.
• Training and development platforms (e.g., Udemy, Pluralsight) for accessing Agile training resources and programs.

Speridian is an equal opportunity employer