RaceTrac Company Overview

Job Description:

The HR Product Owner is responsible for supporting the product management lifecycle for the HR technology portfolio in one of three focus areas: Total Rewards, HCM, Talent  & Employee Lifecycle, or Pay, Time, and Attendance. Sitting within the HR function, the HR Product Owner serves as the primary bridge between HR stakeholders and the enterprise technology organization. This role will ensure HR technology solutions align with business priorities, support employee experience, and enable operational efficiency. The Product Owner will own the HR product backlog, gather and prioritize business requirements, and translate them into user stories and features for development teams.

This position requires a strong blend of HR functional knowledge, technical acumen, and agile product ownership skills. The Product Owner will act as the voice of HR users, ensuring that system enhancements and releases deliver business value and align with HR strategy

Responsibilities:

Duties and Responsibilities:

Product Ownership & Strategy

• Serve as the primary HR representative within the Agile Release Train (ART), ensuring HR’s voice and needs are incorporated into planning and delivery.

• Leads the agile team’s priorities and updates in daily standups, sprint planning, and other agile ceremonies; working in collaboration with HR stakeholders, user experience design, & a variety of technology partners.

• Define and maintain the HR product vision for their focus area, roadmap, and backlog, aligning with HR strategy and business priorities.

• Partner with HR leadership, business stakeholders, and IT release train teams to prioritize enhancements, bug fixes, and new functionality.

• Develops deep understanding of the target user, the end-to-end customer experience, the product vision, and success criteria for the product portfolio.

• Partners with HR stakeholders to understand and influence product strategy and roadmaps, aggregate and conceive ideas for enhancing product performance and achieving product success/KPIs.

Backlog & Agile Delivery

• Translate HR business requirements into user stories, acceptance criteria, and features for development teams.

• Prioritize backlog items based on business value, compliance requirements, and employee experience impact.

• Participate in PI (Program Increment) Planning, Sprint Reviews, and Retrospectives, ensuring continuous alignment between HR and the release train.

• Validate solutions before release, ensuring quality, compliance, and usability.

• Leads Agile backlog grooming sessions by presenting upcoming features to our development team. Partners with solution architects and other technical leads to ensure their solutions effectively address HR’s product and program priorities.

• Collaborates with IT and business stakeholders to lead requirements gathering, determine features, and write user stories for HRIS products that include acceptance criteria and acceptance tests. Participate in team demo with the primary responsibility of reviewing and business acceptance.

• Builds and maintains a prioritized product backlog, with input from HR managers, HRIS, and other business stakeholders. Can effectively communicate prioritization decisions and the agile process to various teams.

• Spokesperson of business strategy to our development teams. Highly available to technical team during development sprints in order to answer real-time questions and provide clarity to user stories or remove roadblocks.

• Partners with scrum teams on rollout and post-production support.

• Reviews analysis and performance monitoring for specified products. Supports problem resolution, resolves issues and acts on feedback and usage of in-life products. Contributes to product collateral and monitors results and feedback from product launches.

Stakeholder Management

• Act as the liaison between HR and IT, translating technical concepts into HR-friendly language and vice versa.

• Facilitate regular feedback sessions with HR stakeholders to capture evolving needs.

• Provide status updates, release notes, and change impacts to HR teams and business leaders.

Governance, Compliance, and Data

• Ensure HRIS solutions meet data governance, compliance, and security requirements.

• Collaborate with HR operations and compliance teams to ensure changes align with regulatory requirements.

• Monitor adoption and system usage, using metrics and analytics to drive continuous improvement.

Success Measures

• Clear and prioritized HRIS product backlog aligned with HR and business goals.

• Increased adoption and satisfaction with HR systems across HR and business users.

• Delivery of system enhancements and releases on time and within scope.

• Improved HR process efficiency and employee experience enabled by HRIS.

Focus Area: The HR Product Owner may be aligned to one of the following HR focus areas. While core product ownership responsibilities remain consistent, each area requires specialized knowledge and focus:

Total Rewards

Responsibilities:

• Partner with Rewards leaders to optimize system support for compensation planning, pay equity analysis, and benefits administration.

• Ensure integrations with payroll, finance, and third-party benefits vendors are accurate and seamless.

• Manage system configurations to support annual compensation cycles and open enrollment.

Knowledge & Skills:

• Familiarity with compensation cycles, merit and bonus processes, and benefits enrollment systems.

• Understanding compensation structures, merit and bonus cycles, and benefits administration.

• Knowledge of compliance requirements (ACA, FLSA, ERISA) and benefits vendor integrations.

Talent & Employee Lifecycle

Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with Talent Acquisition and Talent Management leaders to improve hiring workflows, onboarding, and career development systems.

• Partner with Talent Acquisition to ensure third-party recruiting vendor integration with RaceTrac HRIS.

• Enhance performance management, succession planning, and learning system functionality to support growth and retention strategies.

• Ensure smooth data transitions across the full employee lifecycle (from hire to exit).

Knowledge & Skills:

• Deep understanding of talent acquisition processes, onboarding, learning & development, performance management, succession planning, and employee data management.

• Experience supporting applicant tracking systems (ATS), learning management systems (LMS), and career/talent frameworks.

Pay, Time & Attendance

Responsibilities:

• Partner with Payroll and HR Operations to optimize pay processes, accruals, overtime, and compliance rules within the system.

• Support accurate and efficient scheduling, attendance tracking, and labor reporting.

• Ensure system capabilities align with complex workforce needs, including retail, food service, and transportation employees.

Knowledge & Skills:

• Strong understanding of payroll operations, time tracking, scheduling, and compliance with labor laws (FLSA, FMLA, state-level requirements).

• Familiarity with hourly workforce management systems and integrations to payroll providers.

Qualifications:

Work Experience & Education

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited College or University required; Advanced degree or professional certifications preferred
• 4+ years of experience as a product owner or in a similar product-focused role.
• Strong practical knowledge/experience with core human resources processes (e.g., employee data management, performance, compensation, benefits, compliance).
• Proven experience managing product lifecycles from ideation to launch and ongoing optimization.
• Experience understanding user needs / business requirements and articulating those to analytical team members, as well as translating analytics results into business insights
• Demonstrated technical acumen and an ability to work with the technology organization to align product and technology roadmaps
• Experience with agile methodology

Skills & Competencies

• Strong understanding of HR platforms (e.g., Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle HCM, UKG).
• Demonstrated ability to translate HR business needs into technical requirements.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills.
• Strong analytical skills and attention to detail, with the ability to balance business priorities and technical feasibility.
• Comfortable working in fast-paced, cross-functional, agile environments.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment with RaceTrac without regard to their race, national origin, religion, age, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by local, state, or federal laws, rules, or regulations.