Senior Technical Product Owner, Data

The Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) is the statewide professional association for physicians and medical students, supporting 25,000 members. We are dedicated to educating and advocating for the physicians of Massachusetts and patients locally and nationally. A leadership voice in health care, the MMS contributes physician and patient perspectives to influence health-related legislation at the state and federal levels, works in support of public health, provides expert advice on physician practice management, and addresses issues of physician well-being. Under the auspices of NEJM Group, the MMS extends our mission globally by advancing medical knowledge from research to patient care through the New England Journal of Medicine, NEJM Evidence, NEJM AI, NEJM Catalyst, NEJM Clinician, and through our accredited and comprehensive continuing medical education programs.

The world has changed, and so has the way we work. The MMS has adopted a flexible work model that allows most employees to choose where they work – at home, onsite in our Waltham office, or a combination of the two – based on their preferences and our business needs. Because what matters is the work we do, not where we do it.  

We are looking for a Senior Technical Product Owner, Data who can lead teams with confidence, make decisions in ambiguous situations, and drive execution across matrixed data teams. You will oversee a complex environment spanning mission-critical SQL Server systems and a growing portfolio of cloud-native database applications, ensuring alignment with organizational priorities and long-term strategy.

This is a highly technical product owner role. The right candidate will have hands-on experience as a database developer or engineer, including writing queries, building pipelines, modeling data, and understanding the technical complexity behind the work.

Responsibilities:

Product Ownership

• Own and maintain a prioritized product backlog for database development initiatives, balancing business value, technical debt, and platform reliability.
• Define and communicate a clear product vision and roadmap for the data platform, in alignment with organizational strategy.
• Write detailed, technically precise user stories, epics, and acceptance criteria that engineering teams can act on confidently.
• Make informed trade-off decisions on scope, quality, and delivery timelines.

Technical Leadership

• Serve as the primary liaison between database engineering teams and business stakeholders, translating complex technical concepts into clear business outcomes.
• Participate in architecture reviews, design discussions, and sprint ceremonies.
• Develop a strong understanding of the team's database technologies to credibly challenge and guide engineering decisions.
• Champion data quality, performance, and security standards across all database initiatives.
• Foster a collaborative, high-performing team environment by removing obstacles and supporting effective execution.
• Serve as a mentor to junior team members.
• Continuously seek opportunities to improve team processes within an agile environment.

Stakeholder Management

• Engage regularly with business partners, data consumers, and leadership to gather requirements and manage expectations.
• Drive alignment across cross-functional teams including data engineering, analytics, security, and infrastructure.
• Provide clear, regular reporting on roadmap progress, risks, and outcomes.

• Continuously seek opportunities to improve team processes within an agile environment.

Required Qualifications:

• A Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience. 8 + years of experience in a Product Owner, Technical Product Manager, or equivalent role, with a meaningful portion supporting engineering or data platform teams.
• 2-3 years hands-on experience as a database developer, data engineer, or software engineer working directly with the technologies in this stack. Product ownership experience alone will not be sufficient; candidates must be able to speak with credibility from having built, not just managed.
• Deep, hands-on experience with Microsoft SQL Server including schema design, stored procedures, indexing strategies, and performance tuning in production environments.
• Working knowledge of cloud-based database platforms (e.g., Azure SQL, Snowflake, AWS RDS/Aurora) and the challenges of running both legacy and cloud systems in parallel.
• Demonstrated ability to lead without direct authority including driving decisions, resolving cross-team conflict, and pushing back on scope creep or technical drift without losing the room.
• Hands-on experience with Amazon Redshift for cloud data warehousing, including query optimization, distribution strategies, and workload management.
• Practical knowledge of data lake and lakehouse architectures — including storage layers, metadata management, and governance patterns (e.g., AWS S3/Glue, Delta Lake, or Apache Iceberg).
• Experience working with Power BI as a primary BI/reporting platform, including an understanding of data modeling, DAX, and how reporting requirements drive upstream database design decisions.
• Proven experience writing and refining backlogs in agile environments (Scrum, Kanban, or SAFe).
• Strong communication skills with the ability to engage credibly with both engineers and executives.
• Experience working in a scaled product environment with multiple development teams.
• Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), SAFe POPM, or equivalent certification.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading or contributing to a legacy-to-cloud migration (e.g., SQL Server to Azure SQL or Snowflake).
• Experience with data governance, data lineage, or regulatory compliance requirements (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2).
• Exposure to ELT/ETL pipelines and modern data stack tooling.
• Experience with tools such as Jira, Confluence, dbt, or similar.

Compensation:

The target base pay for this role is $140,000-$150,000. Salary is commensurate with skills, qualifications, and experience. 

Benefits:

Our generous benefits offerings include: 3 weeks of paid vacation, 6 personal days, 12 sick days, 13 paid holidays, medical and dental plans, 401(k) plans with company match, backup childcare assistance, tuition assistance and more!

The MMS has earned praise as one of the Top Places to Work in Massachusetts by The Boston Globe for the past 16 years in a row! The Globe surveys employees regarding their opinions about company leadership, benefits, ethics, values and culture, and recognizes those companies who receive high marks from their employees.

The MMS is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to providing opportunities to veterans and people with disabilities and a work environment that is welcoming to all.