About TheLinkU
TheLinkU is a leading NIL (Name, Image & Likeness) platform built to help college athletes, universities, and businesses unlock compliant, revenue-generating opportunities in today's evolving collegiate sports landscape. We provide the infrastructure, relationships, and execution needed to drive sustainable NIL revenue while maintaining transparency, compliance, and operational efficiency. Our innovative SaaS platform is at the core of this mission, connecting stakeholders and streamlining complex processes.
Position Overview
We are seeking a highly motivated and experienced Product Owner to take end-to-end ownership of product execution for our SaaS platform. This pivotal role operates at the intersection of business strategy, engineering, and customer needs, ensuring our product delivers maximum value and innovation within the rapidly evolving NIL ecosystem.
You will work closely with leadership, engineering teams, and key stakeholders to define priorities, manage the product backlog, and ensure features are delivered with clarity, impact, and a focus on user experience. This is a hands-on role for a self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced, agile environment and can operate independently to drive product success.
Key Responsibilities
- Own and manage the product backlog for specific features or product areas, ensuring clear prioritization aligned with TheLinkU's business goals and strategic roadmap.
- Translate high-level business needs and user feedback into detailed, well-defined user stories, acceptance criteria, and technical requirements.
- Work closely with engineering teams in an Agile/Scrum environment to facilitate sprint planning, execution, and successful delivery of product increments.
- Lead and actively participate in all Scrum ceremonies, including Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-ups, Sprint Reviews, and Retrospectives.
- Act as the primary bridge between business stakeholders and engineering, ensuring clear communication, alignment on requirements, and realistic timelines.
- Conduct compelling product demonstrations for internal teams and customers, effectively showcasing delivered features and their value proposition.
- Continuously monitor competitor products, market trends, and emerging technologies to identify opportunities for meaningful product improvements or new features.
- Collaborate with leadership and other product team members to shape the product roadmap and influence feature prioritization based on data and strategic objectives.
- Ensure that delivered features meet high standards of quality, usability, and business expectations.
- Track and analyze product performance metrics and gather user feedback to drive continuous improvement and iteration.
What Success Looks Like
- The product backlog is consistently clear, well-prioritized, and directly supports TheLinkU's strategic objectives.
- Features are delivered on time, within scope, and meet high-quality standards, delighting users and stakeholders.
- Seamless and effective collaboration exists between business, engineering, and other internal teams.
- Product improvements and new features are data-driven, measurably impacting user experience, operational efficiency, and business growth.
- You proactively identify market opportunities and competitive advantages, translating them into actionable product initiatives.
- You consistently demonstrate strong ownership, accountability, and the ability to drive initiatives to completion with minimal supervision.
Qualifications
Required
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience in product management, business analysis, or a related field.
- Minimum of 3 years of progressive experience as a Product Owner or similar role, specifically within a SaaS product environment.
- Strong working experience and deep understanding of Agile/Scrum methodologies.
- Proven ability to write clear, concise user stories, manage product backlogs effectively, and define precise acceptance criteria.
- Demonstrated experience working closely with engineering teams (developers, QA, architects) throughout the software development lifecycle.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to effectively articulate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and business requirements to technical teams.
- Experience conducting product demos and leading stakeholder walkthroughs.
- Solid understanding of product thinking, user-centric design principles, prioritization frameworks, and managing trade-offs.
- Comfortable working in a fast-paced, dynamic startup environment with evolving priorities.
- Self-driven, highly accountable, and able to take full ownership of product initiatives without constant direction.
- Strong analytical skills with a proven habit of observing competitors and translating insights into actionable product decisions.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; your user stories, memos, and presentations are polished and effective.
Preferred
- Experience working on marketplace platforms or complex B2B/B2C SaaS solutions.
- Exposure to the sports industry, college athletics, NIL, influencer marketing, or brand partnership workflows.
- Experience with data-driven decision making and leveraging analytics tools to inform product strategy.
- Familiarity with product management tools such as JIRA, Confluence, Asana, or similar.
- Prior experience working with distributed or offshore engineering teams.
- Experience in a startup or small product team where you wore multiple hats and contributed across various product functions.
- Ability to identify and propose AI-driven features or enhancements that can improve user experience, automation, or product differentiation.
Why Join TheLinkU
- Opportunity to work directly with leadership and significantly influence the product direction of a cutting-edge platform.
- Thrive in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial environment where your work directly impacts the business and the future of NIL.
- Take on an ownership-driven role with real responsibility, moving beyond mere coordination to truly shape our product.
- Be part of one of the fastest-growing sectors in sports and marketing.
- Play a direct role in supporting NIL operations across Power 5 and FBS institutions.
Benefits
Competitive compensation, based on experience and impact.
Work Authorization
Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States. We are not able to provide visa sponsorship for this role at this time.
TheLinkU is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.
