Sr Product Owner

Position Title: Sr Product Owner
Position Type: Regular - Full-Time
Position Location: Toronto HQ
Requisition ID: 35027
At McCain, we believe in meaningful technology - using digital technology not just for innovation, but to make a difference globally. Join a team where innovation drives purpose and technology shapes the future. This is your chance to develop sought-after expertise, work on exciting, high-impact projects, and create solutions that truly make a difference. If you're ready to push boundaries, tackle purposeful challenges, and build a career that matters, we want you on our team.
In every role, McCainers are ambitious, curious, and passionate about creating exceptional work experiences - together. With a customer-first mindset, we make doing business with McCain easy.
We know the importance that food plays in people's lives - the power it has to bring people, families and communities together. Our purpose is to bring enjoyment to people's lives through great tasting food, in a way which reflects our values. McCain has recently committed to implementing regenerative agriculture practices across 100 percent of our potato acreage by 2030. Ask us more about our commitment to sustainability.
About the role.
McCain is embarking on a digital transformation. As part of this transformation, we are making significant investments into our data systems, structures and policies, and building digital products for our customers, key suppliers and McCain team members to enable digital processes and data-driven automation over time.
Our Technology team's goal is to inspire growth through innovative technology experiences. Our digital teams are key to delivering this ambition. McCain has established digital teams in Manufacturing and Commercial and we are now looking forward to expanding our investments in Agriculture embedded in how we manage our potato contracts and receiving details to the plant.
McCain is looking for a Sr. Product Owner with a strong knowledge of the marketplace of agri-tech/science solutions with a proven track record of successfully delivering digital products in an Agriculture context for a global organization.
Data is at the heart of how we do Agriculture at McCain. We are looking for a Sr. Product Owner to execute on our technology ambition to deliver potato contracting and receiving solutions that will improve Growers experience working with McCain and improve the visibility, quality and supply of potatoes being delivered to the manufacturing plant.
Sr. Product Owner is responsible for defining and executing the vision, strategy, and roadmap for digital products within digital agriculture. This role bridges the gap between business stakeholders and Agile development teams, ensuring that product initiatives align with company objectives, market needs, and user expectations. The Senior Product Owner plays a critical role in backlog management, stakeholder engagement, and change management to maximize product value and user adoption.
What you'll be doing.
Reporting to the Sr. Director, Digital Technology Agriculture you will:

• Partner with global and regional commercial leaders of McCain to co-create a multi-year vision & roadmap to digitally transform our legacy Potato Contacting and Receiving system and business processes across the McCain global organization.
• Lead and direct Technology teams to support execution of the prioritized of initiatives, leading to deprecation of legacy systems once needs are achieved in new systems
• Establish KPIs and measures to track the progress and report the deliverables of technology initiatives.
• Continually improve customer data quality & enrichment to enable prioritization of sales and service initiatives
• Digitize to simplify commercial processes and embed data-led decision making and insights to enable continual improvement.
• Infuse knowledge of technology trends and competitor activity into decision making
• Work closely with the Digital Technology teams for application development, data and AI, platform and infrastructure, and McCain's Commercial Product Management team and leaders to digitize and codify agricultural practices.

Product Management

• Build user-friendly tools & solutions that will drive user adoption & engagement
• Understand key user pain points and current day-to-day processes that will be impacted by owned use cases
• Bring a UX/UI-centric approach to solution development and deployment, seeking iterative feedback from stakeholders and adjusting strategy accordingly
• Establish a clear vision and define success
• Work with business stakeholders to prioritize problems to solve and regions to deploy
• Establish a user feedback process with plants that gets incorporated into product plans

• Proactively Explore industry trends and advancements in technology to identify new and leading solutions that will significantly impact the achievement of the business objectives and move McCain ahead of the competition.
• Identify opportunities within the business to improve or provide data & insights to enhance decisions or facilitate agility.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Identify overall goals of the product(s) and lead engagement with business leaders, teams, and external partners.
• Drive stakeholder alignment and adoption of product features and improvements.
• Champion Agile best practices, emphasizing iterative development, continuous feedback, and value delivery.
• Work with stakeholders to prioritize and refine the product backlog, ensuring the development of high-value features.
• Ensure transparent communication about product progress, changes, and release plans.

Technology Delivery

• Develops, owns, and executes product roadmap.
• Translates product roadmap features into well-defined user stories and acceptance criteria
• Works in an Agile environment and continuously reviews the business needs, refines priorities, outlines milestones and deliverables, and identifies opportunities and risks.
• Participates in the development process with the development team and external partners to deliver product changes.
• Work closely with Data and Analytics teams to deliver Ai and data-led solutions.
• Prioritizes and maintains the backlog for assigned products, balancing the requirements of stakeholders.
• Partners with product stakeholders to define the user experience
• Identifies change management impacts to end-user community and collaborates with respective stakeholders to manage/mitigate
• Ensures data & Insights are available to create actionable outcomes to the ultimate customer.
• Develops and maintains appropriate tracking and reporting of product performance post-launch to evaluate future investment.
• Understands Product roadmap risks, issues, and blockers actively assists with issue resolution
• Work closely with Scrum Masters, developers, QA teams, and business analysts/subject-matter experts to deliver high-quality solutions and follow Agile practices.
• Act as the primary liaison between business stakeholders and Agile development teams, ensuring product priorities are well understood.

What you'll need to be successful.

• Minimum of 10 years of experience working as a product owner or in a product management capacity in the agri-tech industry (with evidence of progressive roles)
• Bachelor's Degree in Food, Engineering, Business, Computer Science, IT, or a related field
• Good business acumen, understands how to drive value through the use of technology and data
• Strong problem-solving and critical-thinking skills with a customer-centric mindset.
• Solid Knowledge of:
• SAP/ Salesforce solutions, Outsystems, and custom application delivery
• Agile frameworks (SAFe, Scrum, Kanban) and demonstrated skill in project management
• Software development processes, APIs and system integrations
• Proven ability to work collaboratively across levels and functions internally and with third parties.
• Experience in leading projects preferably in a global environment and managing complexity and ambiguity
• Behaviors and Attitudes
• Experienced and can speak with credibility on Product Management principles, user centered design, and agile methodologies
• Strong interpersonal skills;
• Strong communication skills: is able to effectively and persuasively communicate to various audiences including plant management or operators level
• Strong time management skills, and ability to stick to pre-determined timelines
• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and capable of managing multiple priorities in a dynamic environment

OTHER INFORMATION

• Hours of work are a regular 40-hour work week, Monday to Friday, with the potential for extended work hours based on business needs
• Travel: required
• Hybrid role: 2 days in office per week. This may fluctuate depending on work to be done.

About McCain.
Click Here to learn more about McCain and how we provide you with opportunities to make an impact that matters.
Leadership principles.
At McCain, our leadership principles guide how we engage with customers, collaborate as a team, and achieve success. We focus on understanding customer needs, driving innovation, empowering people, and taking ownership to clear obstacles and deliver results.
The McCain experience.
We are McCain. This statement is a testament to our collective strength and our individual value. Your contributions play a vital role in our success. Our winning culture is rooted in authenticity and trust, empowering us to bring out the best in one another. Here, you'll find opportunities to learn, grow, and thrive. Join us and experience why we're better together.
Our purpose is grounded in building meaningful relationships. We're big believers in the power of working together in person-it helps us stay connected, collaborate more effectively, and grow as a team. At the same time, we recognize the importance of flexibility. Most office-based roles follow a hybrid model, with the option to work remotely two days a week. There may be exceptions depending on the role and location, so we encourage you to speak with your recruiter for more details.
#LI-McCain2025
Compensation Package : $102,700.00 - $137,000.00 CAD annually + bonus eligibility
The above reflects the target compensation range for the position at the time of posting. Hiring compensation will be determined based on experience, skill set, education/training, and other organizational needs.
Benefits : At McCain, we're on a mission to create a winning culture that puts employee safety and wellbeing at the heart of what we do, every day. We understand and appreciate that each person's needs are unique and ensure our benefits & wellbeing programs reflect that. Employees are eligible for the following benefits: health coverage (medical, dental, vision, prescription drug), retirement savings benefits, and leave support including medical, family and bereavement. Wellbeing programs include vacation and holidays, company-supported volunteering time, and mental health resources. Coverages are aligned to country, provincial and state governing plans and can vary by work level, location and nature of the role. Additional benefit details available during the application process.
Your well-being matters to us, and we're here to provide you with the necessary resources to support you in being your best self at work - and at home.
McCain Foods is an equal opportunity employer. We see value in ensuring we have a diverse, antiracist, inclusive, merit-based, and equitable workplace. As a global family-owned company we are proud to reflect the diverse communities around the world in which we live and work. We recognize that diversity drives our creativity, resilience, and success and makes our business stronger.
McCain is an accessible employer. If you require an accommodation throughout the recruitment process (including alternate formats of materials or accessible meeting rooms), please let us know and we will work with you to meet your needs.
Your privacy is important to us. By submitting personal data or information to us, you agree this will be handled in accordance with the Global Privacy Policy
Job Family: Information Technology
Division: Global Digital Technology
Department: Digital Ag
Location(s): CA - Canada : Ontario : Toronto || CA - Canada : New Brunswick : Florenceville-Bristol
Company: McCain Foods (Canada)