Lead Product Owner

Caterpillar Inc.•Peoria, IL

About The Position

Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc. When you join Caterpillar, you're joining a global team who cares not just about the work we do – but also about each other. We are the makers, problem solvers, and future world builders who are creating stronger, more sustainable communities. We don't just talk about progress and innovation here – we make it happen, with our customers, where we work and live. Together, we are building a better world, so we can all enjoy living in it. Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc. Cat Digital is the digital and technology arm of Caterpillar Inc., leveraging the latest technologies to build industry leading digital solutions for our customers and dealers. With over 1.5 million connected assets worldwide, our teams use data, technology, advanced analytics, telematics, and AI capabilities to help our customers build a better, more sustainable world. Job Summary: As a Lead Technical Product Owner, you will play a critical role in executing Caterpillar’s Digital Strategy by driving the vision, roadmap, governance, and operational excellence of search product that is powering our ecommerce and other websites. You will own end‑to-end search product lifecycle management, incorporating IT Service Management (ITSM) principles to ensure reliability, scalability, and quality across global digital platforms. This role requires strong product ownership experience, deep collaboration across technical and business teams, and the ability to balance innovation with operational efficiencies grounded in ITSM frameworks such as Incident, Problem, Change, Request, Knowledge, and Configuration Management.

Requirements

Business Analysis Develops business cases, requirements, and acceptance criteria.
Works with stakeholders to deliver high-value digital solutions.
Decision Making & Critical Thinking Synthesizes data, historical context, and assumptions to guide decision-making.
Advises teams on evaluating alternatives and assessing impacts.
Effective Communication Communicates clearly with senior leaders, technical teams, and business partners.
Adapts communication style to different audiences and environments.
Software Change & Problem Management Manages full lifecycle of enhancements, defects, and non-standard requests.
Ensures accurate documentation, transparency, and proper escalation.
Software Engineering Awareness Understands Search/ecommerce/ Websites architecture, digital platforms, and integration patterns.
Works closely with developers to refine requirements and technical delivery milestones.
User Acceptance Testing Designs, critiques, and implements UAT frameworks.
Partners with end-users to ensure business readiness and solution quality.
Progressively complex professional experience.
Experience as a Product Owner/Manager, Lead Business Analyst, or Senior Project/Program Manager.
Experience leading technical teams and managing multiple projects simultaneously.
Experience working within ITSM processes (incident, change, problem).
Strong communication, organization, and stakeholder management skills.
Ability to handle sensitive, complex, or high-visibility issues.
Excellent written and verbal communication abilities.

Nice To Haves

Proven experience with Search products product management function
Work with engineering teams that build search solutions using (Any of the search platforms Lucid works, Coveo, Agolia, Constructor, Vertex Search AI – Commerce etc)
Technical product roadmap for search using AI/ML/ GenAI experience
Strong understanding on Search, commerce, AEM powered websites Integration etc
Strong expertise in search optimization ( Configuration, Algorithms for reranking, etc)
Understanding of Product search, Website Search , Data / Diagrams search technical components
Hands-on experience with Agile tools (Jira, DevOps, Rally, Mingle, etc.).
Experience with global onshore/offshore delivery models.
Experience collaborating with SRE/DevOps teams on reliability and performance improvements.
Product Owner certification (CSPO, SAFe POPM, etc.).
Strong understanding of SDLC, cloud platforms, and enterprise technology environments.

Responsibilities

Product Ownership & Strategy Own the product vision, strategy, and roadmap for Search function as Product.
Lead feature intake, backlog prioritization, and alignment with business objectives.
Ensure platform stability, compliance, reliability, and supportability using ITSM processes and metrics.
ITSM Integration & Operational Excellence Oversee incident, problem, and change management processes for the Search platform.
Partner with Search leads to evaluate recurring issues, identify root causes, and drive permanent fixes.
Manage platform change requests with full visibility into scope, impacts, risk, cost, and approvals.
Govern SLAs, KPIs, and operational dashboards for Search and related services.
Ensure proper creation, maintenance, and quality of knowledge articles, runbooks, and support documentation.
Cross-Functional Collaboration Synchronize with engineering, QA, release managers, site reliability engineering (SRE), and DevOps teams to ensure seamless platform delivery.
Partner with marketing teams to combine marketing strategy with appropriate Search capabilities.
Collaborate with global support teams (onshore/offshore) to ensure consistent service levels.
Platform Support & Issue Management Identify and track design, reliability, integration, and maintenance issues.
Consolidate feedback from customers, dealers, field staff, and digital teams.
Provide guidance for search integrations, infrastructure dependencies, and performance optimization.
Support and lead major releases, upgrades, deployments, and platform enhancements.
User Acceptance, Testing & Quality Control Define UAT strategies, acceptance criteria, and testing approaches.
Ensure compatibility of search solutions across systems, integrations, and user groups.
Partner with business users to develop meaningful end‑to-end validation.