Product Owner - Platform Team

RTI International is an independent, scientific research institute dedicated to improving the human condition. Our vision is to address the world's most critical problems with technical and science-based solutions in pursuit of a better future. Clients rely on us to answer questions that demand an objective and multidisciplinary approach—one that integrates expertise across social, statistical, data, and laboratory sciences, engineering, and other technical disciplines to solve the world’s most challenging problems.We believe in the promise of science and technical solutions, and we push ourselves every day to deliver on that promise for the good of people, communities, and businesses in the US and around the world. If you are looking for the opportunity to make a real difference, RTI is the place for you.

RTI International’s Platform Team serves as a strategic technology enablement group that helps RTI business units deliver secure, scalable, and cost-effective digital solutions. We provide reusable platform patterns through modern cloud & data engineering and operational support services for research computing, analytics, application development, and data-intensive work steams. We work collaboratively with project & software teams as well as infrastructure teams, compliance, and security partners across RTI to reduce one-off technology builds, improve delivery consistency, and help business units bring solutions to market more efficiently.

The Platform Team is currently expanding the shared environments, services, and operational capabilities it develops, operates, and maintains in support of RTI projects and strategic initiatives. These capabilities support a broad range of cloud, application, analytics, and research computing needs, including:

• Research computing and analytics environments
• Kubernetes-based application and platform services
• Secure data enclave and lakehouse architectures
• CI/CD, GitOps, and Infrastructure-as-Code automation
• Cloud cost modeling, observability, and platform operations
• Integrated tools such as JupyterHub, RStudio/Posit, Airflow, REDCap, Stata, Databricks, and custom web applications

We have an immediate opportunity for a Product Owner to join our growing platform team. The successful candidate will work with multidisciplinary teams including platform engineers, software developers, data engineers, security and infrastructure teams, project leaders, and non-technical stakeholders to support, operate, maintain, and enhance existing platform capabilities as well as contribute to the development of new services that support RTI projects and initiatives.

This position is right for you if you:

• Exhibit passion for technology, enjoy working across several projects and systems at the same time, and are energized by building, understanding, maintaining, and troubleshooting complex cloud and platform environments.
• Want to continually learn and apply new technologies, patterns, and practices in cloud engineering, DevOps, research computing, data platforms, and secure application delivery.
• Have experience designing, building, and operating in a cloud computing environment, including the use of Infrastructure-as-Code and automated deployment patterns.
• Have a strong understanding of the software delivery lifecycle using version control, continuous integration/continuous deployment, project tracking tools, automated testing, and operational release practices.
• Are proactive and communicate effectively with internal and external stakeholders with varying degrees of technical knowledge.
• Are interested in helping project teams adopt reusable platform patterns that improve delivery speed, compliance readiness, operational consistency, and cost transparency.

• →Works with project teams, software teams, I.T., business stakeholders, and platform engineers to gather requirements and translate needs into actionable platform work.
• →Coordinates intake, onboarding, communication, and adoption processes for teams using shared platform services, and supports prioritization.
• →Supports defining platform support models, service expectations, escalation paths, and operational procedures, and maintains knowledge base materials.
• →Coordinates with platform engineering teams to support issue resolution, backlog refinement, user communication, and service improvement activities.
• →Supports agile delivery practices, including writing epics, user stories, and acceptance criteria, and participating in sprint planning, demos, retrospectives, and roadmap reviews.
• →Tracks and reports on platform usage, customer feedback, operational performance, and adoption trends to help identify improvement opportunities.
• →Assists with cost modeling, usage analysis, budgeting, forecasting, chargeback, showback, and project cost estimation for shared platform services.
• →Participates with cybersecurity, compliance, infrastructure, and governance teams to help ensure platform services align with organizational, security, and regulatory expectations.
• →Maintains awareness of and helps communicate inherited platform controls, project-level responsibilities, compliance boundaries, and regulated research environment considerations.
• →Develops and maintains reusable platform reference materials, onboarding documentation, training content, communications, and stakeholder updates.
• →Follows and helps document ownership boundaries across platform teams, infrastructure teams, security teams, software teams, data teams, and project stakeholders.
• →Supports stakeholder alignment, service roadmap coordination, and cross-functional decision-making under the direction of senior product owners and platform leadership.

• Bachelor's Degree and at least 3 years of relevant experience, a Master's degree and at least 1 year of relevant experience, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Experience with enterprise scale shared technology platforms, stakeholder engagement & service delivery, product life cycle, operations & governance, cost modeling, agile delivery, and cross-functional technology coordination.
• Ability to develop professional documentation to support product service offerings, roadmaps, lifecycle plans, and other key documentation across multiple systems.
• Ability to translate business, research, technical, operational, security, and compliance needs into actionable requirements.
• Familiarity with Scaled Agile Frameworks (SAFe) practices and work tracking software.
• Understanding of development methodologies surrounding cloud-based platforms, including SDLC, AI-DLC, DevSecOps, and CI/CD practices.
• Analytics skills to support analyzing product usage, customer feedback, cost trends, operational performance, and adoption patterns.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills with the ability to explain technical and operational concepts for diverse audiences.
• Ability to balance priorities across customer needs, operational stability, compliance requirements, cost efficiency, and service delivery.
• Strong problem-solving, facilitation, and decision-making skills.
• Demonstrated commitment to operational excellence, service reliability, documentation quality, and customer-focused support.
• Ability to work independently while contributing to cross-functional teams and organizational objectives.
• Attention to detail, accountability, accuracy, and continuous learning.
• To qualify, applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States and should not require, now or in the future, sponsorship for employment visa status (e.g., H-1B visa status, etc.). 

• Experience with cloud hosted technology platforms used in scientific research, healthcare, and other public sector technology domains is preferred.
• Experience supporting security and compliance activities, including systems validation, for regulated technology services is preferred. Examples include documenting and contributing to system security plans and authorization packages, coordinating evidence collection and audit requests, and tracking remediation of findings in environments aligned to FISMA Low/Moderate, HIPAA, or similar regulatory frameworks.

For San Francisco, CA USA Job Postings Only: Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. Further information is available here.

RTI accepts applications to our job openings from candidates with criminal histories or conviction records in accordance with all applicable laws, including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act.

For Applicants in Massachusetts Only: It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.

The anticipated pay range for this role is listed below. Our pay ranges represent national averages and may vary by location as a geographic differential may be applied to some locations within the United States. RTI considers multiple factors when making an offer including, for example: established salary range, internal budget, business needs, and education and years of work experience possessed by the applicant. Further, salary is merely one element to our offer.

At RTI, we demonstrate our commitment to rewarding individual and team achievement through a total rewards package. This package includes (among other things) a competitive base salary, a generous paid time off policy, merit based annual increases, bonus opportunities and a robust recognition program. Other benefits include a competitive range of insurance plans (including health, dental, life, and short-term and long-term disability), access to a retirement savings program such as a 401(k) plan, paid parental leave for all parents, financial assistance with adoption expenses or infertility treatments, financial reimbursement for education and developmental opportunities, an employee assistance program, and numerous other offerings to support a healthy work-life balance.