Product Owner Financial Services

Neha Chauhan

Carmel, IN, USA ***************@*****.*** 317-***-**** https://www.linkedin.com/in/neha-chauhan-4b59b714a/ SUMMARY

As a Product Owner at Vyts, Inc in Texas, I spearheaded the development of cutting-edge solutions for the Financial Services Industry. By leveraging my 13+ years of experience, I successfully managed projects in Portfolio Management, Banking, Payment Gateway, Market Place, Ecommerce, B2B, B2C, Point of Sale (POS) and Merchant Onboarding, User onboarding, driving revenue growth and enhancing user experience.

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Managed the end-to-end product lifecycle for different payment methods using Agile and Scrum methodologies.

Optimized Visa/MasterCard network processing in collaboration with cross-functional teams, improving efficiency and performance.

Implemented Kanban methodology to streamline issuer/acquirer processes and enhance overall operations.

Created and managed dashboards and plans in Jira, tracking initiatives, sub-initiatives, and team velocity.

Analyzed team performance using DORA metrics, focusing on deployment frequency and change failure rates. Drove the successful delivery of Epics and User Stories by collaborating with cross-functional teams.

Facilitated the resolution of vulnerabilities, risk management units, password renewal for service accounts, certificate renewal, incidents, and change tickets using ServiceNow.

Organized ceremonies such as Release Planning, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, and Retrospectives to ensure smooth project execution.

Achieved streamlined processes, reducing downtime and increasing efficiency.

Prioritized tasks based on business value and technology risk assessments, utilizing estimation techniques like Planning Poker and T-shirt sizing.

Tracked sprint progress with Jira tools, including Sprint Burndown, Burnup Charts, Velocity Charts, and Sprint Reports.

Managed requirement churn by coaching teams to create stories aligned with INVEST criteria and tasks based on SMART principles.

Enhanced team collaboration and productivity during retrospectives using techniques like silent writing and Miro boards.

Developed Product Vision and Roadmaps in collaboration with Business Owners, Product Managers, Engineering Directors and other Stakeholders.

Conducted GAP Analysis, Impact Analysis, Feasibility Studies, Root Cause Analysis, and Risk Assessments for comprehensive planning.

Created Project Charters, Work Breakdown Structures, and Project Plans, ensuring project timelines and deliverables were met.

Documented business and system requirements through Screen Mockups, Business Requirements Documents (BRDs), and System Requirements Specifications (SRS).

Developed UML diagrams (Use Cases, Activity Charts, Sequence Diagrams) and ER/Data Flow Diagrams to streamline workflows.

Managed projects involving service-oriented and microservices architecture, focusing on Web Services and validation processes.

Created API documentation to improve client-side/server-side validations and implemented REST protocols for efficient system communication.

Performed various testing types, including Functional, System, Integration, Regression, UAT, Load, Stress, and End-to-End Testing.

Utilized Selenium WebDriver (JAVA) and TestNG for robust automated testing.

Collaborated across teams to ensure comprehensive smoke, negative, and validation testing.

Exhibited strong analytical, communication, and problem-solving skills, driving project success and fostering team collaboration. TECHNICAL SKILLS

Finance Domain Expertise: Portfolio Management, Payment Gateway (Payments/Transaction, Refunds, Status Query, Payouts), Merchant Onboarding, User onboarding, B2B, B2C, Retail, Banking Project Management Tools/Methodologies: UML (Unified Modeling Language), MIRO, Mural Sandbox, MS SharePoint, DORA Metrix, LeanIX, ServiceNow, JIRA, Agile-Scrum, Kanban

Requirement Management Tools: MS Office Suite, JIRA, Confluence Databases: Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL

Office Tools: MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS SharePoint, Microsoft 365 Testing Tools: Selenium WebDriver, Bugzilla, Postman Programming Languages: Java, SQL, JavaScript, HTML, XML, C, C++ Issue Tracking Tools: JIRA, Bugzilla

Operating Systems: Mac OS, Linux (CentOS, Ubuntu), Windows Others: Tomcat, Schedular, WebSphere, ReactJS, API, Aerospike, Apache Kafka, Cassandra, AWS, Google Analytics, Redis, RabbitMQ, OAuth, JWT(JSON Web Token), Elasticsearch

PROFESSIONAL WORK EXPERIENCE

Vyts Inc Mar 2023 to Till Date

Technical Product Owner

Domain: Financial/Banking

Client: Discover Financial Aug 2023 - Feb 2025

Role & Responsibilities:

Led product strategy and requirements for account and portfolio management applications.

Collaborated with Business Product Groups, Engineering Directors, Architects and Project Managers to prioritize and create a Product roadmap in JIRA Align for quarterly Program Increments.

Ensured alignment between team backlogs and customer expectations to meet project goals.

Spearheaded the creation of a dynamic JIRA Dashboard to track initiatives, epics, and user stories, improving project management efficiency and timely delivery of milestones.

Prioritized product backlog based on T-shirt sizing, business value, and dependencies.

Contributed to Product Planning sessions, ensuring initiatives and epics aligned with company goals.

Facilitated the resolution of vulnerabilities, risk management units, password renewal for service accounts, certificate renewal, incidents, and change tickets using ServiceNow.

Worked with Business teams and Product Owners to ensure alignment on project objectives and deliverables.

Created detailed Epics and User Stories with Gherkin Acceptance Criteria, enhancing productivity and process efficiency.

Identified gaps in manual processes and proposed automation solutions to improve workflow efficiency.

Designed Definition of Done to streamline processes for teams.

Created Scrum/Kanban boards, set up JIRA components, and implemented JIRA compliance standards to enhance project management.

Organized organizational goals into initiatives/sub-initiatives and broke them down into Epics using JIRA.

Facilitated Scrum events such as Backlog Refinement, Sprint Planning, and Sprint Reviews.

Coached Scrum teams on user story estimations using Planning Poker and T-shirt sizing techniques.

Prioritized user stories based on business value and technology risk during Backlog Grooming sessions.

Coached teams to split user stories effectively using persona roles and test scenarios, improving estimations and workflow efficiency.

Maintained a healthy backlog, ensuring smooth sprint execution and efficient delivery of product features.

Managed Strategic Technical Debt, coaching stakeholders on handling changes during Sprint Reviews, maintaining a 10% churn rate per sprint.

Tracked team velocity and Sprint progress using Burn Down Charts, converting Sprint Review feedback into user stories for future sprints.

Played a key role in product development and team collaboration while working in a hybrid location in Texas. Client: Vyts Inc Mar 2023 – Aug 2023

Role & Responsibilities:

Communicated the Product Roadmap and Vision to Scrum teams during PI Planning to ensure alignment with Product Management.

Analysed organizational goals in JIRA, categorizing them into Initiatives, Sub-Initiatives, and Epics.

Prioritized features to meet client needs and led cross-functional teams to project completion.

Collaborated with Product Management and the System Architecture team to prioritize business epics in JIRA for the Program Backlog.

Decomposed initiatives into business and enabler epics, considering factors like business value and dependencies.

Represented Scrum teams at PO Sync, ensuring alignment with PI objectives and creating detailed Epics and User Stories in JIRA with Gherkin Acceptance Criteria.

Led Epic estimations and split them into user stories, ensuring compliance with the INVEST criteria.

Attended Scrum events, developed test scenarios, personas, and business rules for efficient workflows.

Prioritized product backlog items in JIRA based on business value and technology risk.

Created project status reports, conversion/implementation plans, and project roadmaps.

Conducted feasibility studies, cost/benefit analyses, gap analyses, risk analyses, and business process modelling.

Developed dashboards using various chart types, including pie and bar charts, in JIRA. Paytm (One97 Communications Limited) June 2013 to November 2022 Domain: Financial / Payments

Product Owner / QA Manager November 2020 to November 2022 Role & Responsibilities:

Acted as the team-level Product Owner and Business Systems Analyst, aligning with the Product roadmap defined by Product Management.

Managed multiple projects within the financial, point of sale (POS) and merchant domains, overseeing prioritization and execution in JIRA.

Collaborated with Product Management to break down Initiatives into Epics and User Stories, utilizing Gherkin format for documentation and prioritizing backlog items based on business value, cost of delay, and dependencies.

Guided teams in decomposing Epics into smaller, estimable, and testable user stories to ensure sprint completion, and actively participated in Scrum ceremonies, including Backlog Refinement, Sprint Planning, Standups, Sprint Reviews, and Retrospectives.

Addressed evolving requirements, monitored team velocity, tracked sprint progress using Burn Down Charts, resolved conflicts, and removed team impediments.

Conducted end-to-end requirements elicitation and prepared Functional and Technical Requirement Specifications, transforming them into user stories with defined Gherkin acceptance criteria.

Performed analysis using techniques like document analysis and brainstorming, and conducted GAP analysis to map AS-IS and TO-BE states with process flows in MS Visio.

Created UML diagrams (Use Case, Sequence, and Activity) and documented Data Mapping Specifications in Confluence for 10+ applications.

Documented and tested REST APIs using Swagger, Postman, ensuring accurate auto-generated API documentation and effective web service testing for REST (JSON).

Designed and executed UAT plans, creating comprehensive Test Cases, Test Plans, Test Scripts, Test Scenarios, and Test Summary Reports to support Functional and Regression Testing.

Facilitated stakeholder meetings to gather requirements, clarify objectives, and align expectations, fostering effective communication and collaboration.

Led daily stand-ups, sprint planning, reviews, and retrospectives to enhance team alignment and promote continuous improvement.

Identified and documented system gaps, refined the product backlog, and addressed future enhancements and capabilities.

Collaborated with Business Owners, Product Managers, Engineering Directors, System Architects, Product Owners, and Scrum Masters to define the Product Vision and Roadmap. Facilitated the prioritization, estimation, and description of Epics with Gherkin-based Acceptance Criteria.

Applied Agile methodologies like Scrum and Kanban to drive iterative development and team collaboration.

Worked in multi-layered environments, verifying applications across upstream systems (e.g., payment apps, web, and WAP) and downstream systems (e.g., APIs, cron jobs, and microservices) while ensuring seamless data flows.

Conducted automation suite testing across middle-layer and backend services, including REST-based services, microservices, schedulers, and databases, within the payment domain.

Mitigated project risks by managing dependencies and proactively addressing potential roadblocks to ensure timely delivery.

Achieved parallel automation within sprints and automated 100% of APIs, covering 95% of traffic.

Implemented automation in pre-production and production environments for application health checks, preventing major bugs in production.

Configured Jenkins jobs for build deployments in QA environments, reducing manual testing efforts and improving QA process efficiency.

Partnered with QA teams to perform thorough software testing using both manual and automation methods, and collaborated with cross-functional teams to address challenges and optimize software testing and automation processes. Projects: Paytm payments app, BPay, UMP Panel, KYC, Marketplace payouts, Point of Sale (POS) Product Owner/ QA Lead June 2018 to November 2020

Role & Responsibilities:

Represented teams at Scrum of Scrum and PO sync meetings, collaborating with Product Management to create a Product Roadmap aligned with the Product Vision.

Reviewed organizational goals in JIRA and Miro dashboards, identified value streams (initiatives/sub-initiatives), and decomposed them into program-level features (Epics).

Estimated Epics for the Program Backlog, further breaking them into User Stories with Acceptance Criteria defined in Gherkin format.

Maintained a Product Backlog with stories in a Ready State for the next two sprints. Participated in Scrum ceremonies, including Backlog Refinement, Sprint Planning, Daily Standups, Sprint Reviews, and Retrospectives.

Managed multiple projects in the financial, Point of Sale (POS) and merchant domains.

Conducted stakeholder meetings to gather requirements, clarify objectives, and manage expectations.

Facilitated daily stand-ups, sprint planning, sprint reviews, and retrospectives to ensure team alignment and drive continuous improvement.

Documented system gaps in the product backlog to address future enhancements and capabilities.

Managed and prioritized the backlog, feature requests, and enhancements effectively.

Led and implemented new and existing configurations, including preparing supporting documentation for change management and end-user training.

Incorporated stakeholder feedback into the product development process to align with business goals.

Engaged stakeholders by communicating risks, enhancements, impacts, and performance updates.

Worked in a multi-layered environment, verifying applications involving upstream systems (payment app, web, and WAP) and downstream systems (APIs, cron jobs, microservices) with seamless data flow management.

Partnered with other product owners and stakeholders to prioritize features and develop product roadmaps.

Performed comprehensive testing across middle-layer services, backend services (REST-based services, microservices, schedulers, databases), and other payment domain components.

Proactively managed project risks, identified dependencies, and addressed issues to mitigate potential challenges.

Planned and executed sub-initiatives and projects from inception to completion.

Collaborated with the QA team to ensure software quality through manual and automated testing.

Implemented in-sprint automation for backend and frontend systems using Java.

Coordinated across teams to solve issues and improve efficiency in software testing and automation processes. Projects : UMP Panel, BPay, Subscription, Paytm payments app, Payment Gateway, Point of Sale (POS) Sr. QA Engineer June 2013 to June 2018

Role & Responsibilities:

Represented teams in Scrum of Scrum and PO sync meetings, collaborating with Product Management to create a Product Roadmap aligned with the Product Vision.

Learned to decompose ideas into initiatives and further into Epics in JIRA, creating Epics and User Stories in persona format with detailed descriptions and Acceptance Criteria.

Estimated Epics using SWAG estimates and coached teams to break larger user stories into smaller, manageable stories.

Defined and implemented the Definition of Ready, Definition of Done, and established a sprint churn rule with a maximum of 10%.

Facilitated Scrum ceremonies, including Daily Scrum, Backlog Refinement, Sprint Planning, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective, adhering to fixed timeboxes.

Authored User Stories in persona format with Gherkin-style Acceptance Criteria (Given-When-Then) for use with Cucumber via feature files.

Resolved conflicts between teams and addressed unexpected challenges arising from customer feedback affecting implementation or Scrum team decisions.

Created a Requirement Traceability Matrix and developed UML diagrams (Use Case, Activity, Sequence) to clarify the vision document.

Designed Conceptual and Logical ER diagrams for databases and Data Dictionaries for data models. Created Data Mapping specifications and Source-to-Target mapping documents with transformation rules. Tested REST APIs using Postman.

Partnered with the QA team to design Test Plans, Test Cases, and execute User Acceptance Testing (UAT), Functional Testing, and Regression Testing. Resolved service-related issues, tracked progress in JIRA and Confluence, and maintained documentation in Confluence.

Operated in a multi-layered environment, verifying applications with interactions across multiple upstream and downstream systems and ensuring smooth data flows.

Conducted end-to-end testing, covering middle-layer services to backend services, including REST-based services, microservices, schedulers, databases, and other components.

Migrated application data from SQL databases to Aerospike.

Coordinated with various teams to address issues and improve efficiency in software testing and automation.

Designed Test Scenarios and reviewed Test Specifications for Java-based applications.

Assisted the Test Lead in preparing Test Plans, monitoring overall test progress, and providing effort estimates for upcoming QA assignments.

Reviewed Test Specifications and Test Data prepared by team members.

Performed regression testing and retesting to ensure software quality. Projects: Payment Gateway(Oltp Web, Mina, Schedulers, Refund, Status Query, Payouts), Admin Panel, Granter, Boss Panel Bureau Veritas CPS Consumer Product Services December 2011 to June 2013 Software Engineer

Domain: ISO Certification

Role & Responsibilities:

Designed test scenarios and reviewed test specifications for quality assurance.

Supported the Test Lead in preparing Test Plans for upcoming QA assignments.

Assisted the Test Lead in monitoring overall test progress and providing effort estimates.

Documented project runbooks in Confluence for streamlined reference.

Took on module lead responsibilities for multiple projects, including DDES.

Engaged directly with clients to discuss and implement project changes.

Collaborated with the Test Lead to resolve issues encountered during test preparation and execution.

Reviewed test specifications and test data prepared by team members to ensure quality.

Created test data and conducted regression testing and retesting of software applications.

Identified and reported defects discovered during testing.

Monitored roadblocks and escalated them to the Test Lead for resolution.

Utilized JIRA for effective bug reporting and tracking. Projects: DDES (Direct Data Entry System), BVLab NG, Inspection Business Management System (IBMS) CERTIFICATIONS & LICENCES

Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)

ISTQB Certification for Testing

Generative AI for Product Managers

Java: Automated API Testing with REST Assured

EDUCATION

Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.), Computer Science from Uttar Pradesh Technical University, India

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