Clarification from the agency

This vacancy announcement is open to the public. This is a temporary position Not-to-Exceed (NTE) 4 years. This position allows for situational, and recurring telework, but does not qualify for full-time or remote telework.

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Case Management Modernization Office (CMM) is seeking an experienced Information Technology Program Manager (Product Owner) to join its team. This position reports to the CMM Chief Product Manager.

The Product Owner is responsible for defining and prioritizing the backlog at the build-pod or value-stream level to coordinate across multiple pods. The product owner translates court and user needs into ready-to-deliver epics, features, and stories with clear acceptance criteria to manage cross-pod dependencies and ensure delivery is aligned to release trains and program direction.

The duties of this position include, but are not limited to:

1. Managing and prioritizing the pod-level backlog for an assigned CMM capability area.
2. Managing consolidated backlogs across multiple pods when operating at value stream.
3. Leading program increment (PI) planning and sprint sequencing with pod leads to balance risk, readiness, and delivery commitments.
4. Translating court and stakeholder needs into epics, features, and stories with explicit acceptance criteria and measurable outcomes for building and testing.
5. Collaborating with engineers, designers, quality, and architecture counterparts to ensure requirements are buildable and testable with the delivery cadence and agreed quality gates.
6. Managing cross-pod dependencies and impacts across integration and application services, data exchange, platform operations, and security to surface tradeoffs early and route escalations to the proper channel.
7. Maintaining delivery transparency by keeping artifacts current (backlog hygiene, dependency tracking; risks actions issues dependencies (RAID) visibility, and release readiness inputs).
8. Incorporating feedback from demos, user acceptance testing, and onboarding activities to refine scope to ensure increments are ready to support downstream training and change impacts.
9. Aligning prioritization methods, story quality standards, and decision rights across pods and value streams.
10. Collaborating to contribute reusable templates and playbooks for backlog refinement,
    acceptance criteria, and dependency management to improve consistency and reduce rework across build delivery.
11. Collaborating with AO leaders, court subject matter experts, and vendor delivery teams.

Conditions of employment

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

1. All information is subject to verification. Applicants are advised that false answers or omissions of information on application materials or inability to meet the following conditions may be grounds for non-selection, withdrawal of an offer of employment, or dismissal after being employed.
2. Selection for this position is contingent upon completion of OF-306, Declaration of Federal Employment during the pre-employment process and proof of U.S. citizenship for competitive status positions or conversion to a competitive status position with the AO. If non-citizens are considered for hire into a temporary or any other position with non-competitive status or when it is confirmed by the AO Human Resources Office there are no qualified U.S. citizens for a competitive status position (unless prohibited by a law or statue), non-citizens must provide proof of authorization to work in the U.S. and proof of entitlement to receive compensation. Additional information on the employment of non-citizens can be found at USAJOBS Help Center | Employment of non-citizens/. For a list of documents that may be used to provide proof of citizenship or authorization to work in the United States, please refer to Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification.
3. All new AO employees will be required to complete an FBI fingerprint-based national criminal database and records check and pass a public trust suitability check.
4. New employees to the AO will be required to successfully pass the E-Verify employment verification check. To learn more about E-Verify, including your rights/responsibilities, visit https://www.e-verify.gov/.
5. All new AO employees are required to identify a financial institution for direct deposit of pay before appointment.
6. You will be required to serve a trial period if selected for a first-time appointment to the Federal government, transferring from another Federal agency, or serving as a first-time supervisor. Failure to successfully complete the trial period may result in termination of employment.
7. If appointed to a temporary position, management may have the discretion of converting the position to permanent depending upon funding and staffing allocation.

Qualifications

Applicants must have demonstrated experience as listed below. This requirement is according to the AO Classification, Compensation, and Recruitment Systems which include interpretive guidance and reference to the OPM Operating Manual for Qualification Standards for General Schedule Positions.

Specialized Experience: Applicants must have at least one full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience which is in or directly related to the line of work of this position. Specialized experience must demonstrate experience in ALL areas defined below:

• Serving as a product owner in a scaled, multi-team agile environment that uses program implement planning, release trains, and value streams.
• Translating complex stakeholder needs into clear, testable acceptance criteria and prioritized backlogs for enterprise software delivery.
• Operating in regulated or high-assurance environments to shape delivery decisions.
• Managing cross-cutting dependencies and non-functional requirements.

• Knowledge of agile tooling (e.g., Jira/Confluence).
• Knowledge of DevSecOps processes.
• Experience with multiple pod builds.
• Experience integrating platform operations.
• Experience with facilitating and working with stakeholders.

• Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)
• Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
• Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO)
• Safe Product Owner/Product Manager (POPM)

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

We will review your resume and supporting documentation and compare this information to your responses on the occupational questionnaire to determine if you meet the minimum qualifications for this job. If you meet the minimum qualifications for this job, we will evaluate your application package, to assess the quality, depth, and complexity of your accomplishments, experience, and education as they relate to the requirements listed in this vacancy announcement.

You should be aware that your ratings are subject to evaluation and verification. If a determination is made that you have rated yourself higher than is supported by your resume and/or narrative responses, you will be assigned a rating commensurate to your described experience. Failure to submit the mandatory narrative responses will result in not receiving full consideration and/or rating credit. Deliberate attempts to falsify information may be grounds for not selecting you, withdrawing an offer of employment, or dismissal after being employed.