Product Owner at Sun Life in Waterloo, ON

Job description

You are as unique as your background, experience and point of view. Here, you’ll be encouraged, empowered and challenged to be your best self. You'll work with dynamic colleagues - experts in their fields - who are eager to share their knowledge with you. Your leaders will inspire and help you reach your potential and soar to new heights. Every day, you'll have new and exciting opportunities to make life brighter for our Clients - who are at the heart of everything we do. At Sun Life, we're driven by our Purpose: helping our Clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives. Our values shape how we work: caring, authentic, bold, inspiring, and impactful. When you join Sun Life, you'll work with passionate colleagues and empowering leaders who support your growth and celebrate your contributions, so you can make a meaningful difference in our Clients' lives. Discover how you can make a difference in the lives of individuals, families and communities around the world. Job Description: Sun Life is one of the leading financial institutions in Canada, offering Canadians holistic advice and innovative insurance, wealth and health solutions through digitally enabled, insights-driven human advisors. We are on an exciting journey to create exceptional experiences for Clients and advisors while strengthening the technology foundations that support our insurance business. Reporting to the Director, Platform Owner, the Product Owner leads the vision, roadmap and evolution of the Traditional Product Development squad. Working with an agile squad and cross-functional partners, the role enables new and redesigned insurance products, evolves core policy-administration capabilities, and ensures accurate information flows to downstream systems supporting policy administration, compensation, reinsurance, valuation, sales reporting and Client communications. The Product Owner balances product enablement, regulatory and operational priorities, and production support while aligning teams around clear outcomes and confident delivery. What will you do? Product vision, strategy and value Own and prioritize the Traditional Product Development backlog, ensuring investments align with the strategy and deliver measurable outcomes tied to Insurance Solutions priorities. Lead quarterly and sprint planning, making timely trade-offs based on user value, business impact, risk, dependencies, capacity and feasibility. Partner with product, pricing, actuarial, operations and technology teams to enable new product changes, including new product launches, product enhancements and repricing. Increase delivery speed and reduce implementation risk by leveraging tools and capabilities such as AI, automation and reusable solutions. Delivery and cross-platform leadership Translate complex business and technical needs into clear features, acceptance criteria, delivery plans and implementation outcomes for the squad. Coordinate solutioning, data mapping, integration, testing and implementation readiness across upstream application teams, core administration systems and downstream partners. Identify risks, dependencies and sequencing issues early; structure ambiguity, evaluate options and escalate material decisions with clear recommendations. Lead delivery through analysis, development, testing, implementation and warranty support. Maintain transparent plans and communicate progress, priorities, trade-offs and decisions to squad members, partners and senior leaders. Promote automation, reusable solutions and continuous improvement to reduce cycle time, improve quality and simplify future product delivery. Strengthen knowledge sustainability through documentation, cross-training and reducing single points of failure. Squad and stakeholder leadership Create clarity of purpose for the agile squad and foster shared accountability for outcomes, quality and delivery commitments. Build trusted relationships across business, operations, architecture, engineering