Data Product Manager

Kapitus•Arlington, VA

9d•$96,300 - $154,400

About The Position

Kapitus is building an enterprise data and AI capability to replace legacy analytics workflows with governed, reusable business data products. The Data Product Manager owns data products throughout their life cycle, from identifying business problems and defining value hypotheses through business cases, build, launch, adoption, usage reporting, and retirement. The role connects business requirements with data engineering, governance, and customer-facing teams, and measures products by business outcomes rather than technical output. It is a product-discipline role rather than a hands-on engineering position; the manager must understand the architecture well enough to connect requirements to it and communicate credibly with engineers. Experience in the lending or adjacent financial services vertical is required; AI fluency is an advantage but not a requirement. The manager defines product value propositions and measurable outcomes, elicits and translates stakeholder needs into testable specifications, and ensures products are aligned with the platform architecture. The role champions prototyping and consumer validation throughout development, manages product portfolio transparency and retirement, and coordinates delivery between U.S.- and India-based teams in an Agile/Scrum environment. Kapitus is a small business financing company operating as a direct lender and a marketplace with lending partners. The company describes its environment as fast-paced and expects self-directed teammates with internal motivation. Remote candidates may be considered if they reside in states where Kapitus or a subsidiary has an established physical presence.

Requirements

At least 5 years of experience in data product management, product ownership, or customer-facing data and analytics roles in a data-intensive environment.
Bachelor's degree in Business, Analytics, Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
At least 3 years working with data in small business lending, commercial or consumer credit, merchant financing, payments, or closely adjacent financial services.
Knowledge of lending and financial-services concepts, including originations and funnel conversion, underwriting and credit policy, pricing and risk tiers, funding, servicing, delinquency and collections, renewals, and portfolio performance.
Command of data product management, including product versus project management, value propositions and hypotheses, business cases, and life-cycle management from ideation through retirement.
Ability to define outcome-driven metrics with stakeholders, track product KPIs, produce usage reports and portfolio scorecards, and communicate credible value stories.
Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills, including the ability to lead requirements workshops, present to executives or customers, and write trusted specifications.
Personally authored product artifacts, such as product one-pagers, quantified-ROI business cases, PRDs with acceptance criteria, data contract and semantic specifications, metric dictionaries, adoption and usage dashboards, and retirement plans; candidates should be prepared to walk through examples.
Proven ability to gather, structure, and prioritize business requirements into PRDs and buildable product specifications, validating them with consumers at each stage.
Understanding of modern data platform concepts, including cloud warehouses, layered architecture, data contracts, semantic definitions, and BI and API serving, sufficient to connect requirements to architecture and converse with engineers.
Ability to converse credibly with engineers about Snowflake, dbt, Tableau, and AWS; hands-on engineering is not required.
Cross-functional and cross-geography delivery experience, Agile/Scrum experience, strong attention to detail, and excellent project management.

Nice To Haves

AI fluency.

Responsibilities

Identify business problems suited to data products, define each product's value proposition, and quantify expected impact before development.
Define outcome-driven metrics tied to business goals, and maintain standardized product KPIs in a metrics dictionary with agreed formulas and owners.
Own usage reporting and portfolio transparency through scorecards, stakeholder-created value stories, and regular invest, pivot, or retire reviews.
Own product and legacy-workflow retirement, including sunset policies, end-of-life roadmaps, and structured decommissioning.
Elicit requirements through stakeholder interviews, focus groups, and customer journey mapping; translate needs into testable requirements and clear acceptance criteria.
Create buildable product definitions that identify owners and consumers and specify data contracts, certified semantic definitions, quality thresholds, and service levels.
Link requirements to the platform architecture, including the layered data foundation, governed core entities, certified semantics, and BI, API, ML, and AI serving channels.
Champion prototyping and iteration, validating value with consumers at each development stage.
Connect business requirements, data engineering, governance, and customer-facing teams, translating needs and delivery details between them.
Communicate progress, trade-offs, and recommendations to technical, non-technical, and customer audiences.
Coordinate between U.S.- and India-based teams to align priorities, requirements, handoffs, and delivery timelines.
Partner with Data Engineering on backlog priorities and sequencing, and with Data Governance on definitions, standards, quality, lineage, and appropriate usage in an Agile/Scrum environment.

Benefits

Annual incentive compensation eligibility of up to 10%.
Medical, dental, and employer-paid vision plans through UnitedHealthcare, with multiple coverage levels.
UnitedHealthcare perks, including Sweat Equity, a Calm App subscription, UHC rewards, Real Appeal, and Quit For Life.
Flexible Spending Account for eligible medical, dental, vision, pharmacy, or dependent-care expenses.
Employer-sponsored Lifestyle Spending Account for eligible physical, mental, and financial well-being expenses.
Company-paid basic short-term and long-term disability insurance.
Voluntary supplemental life insurance and enhanced short- and long-term disability coverage through Mutual of Omaha; Colonial accident and hospitalization insurance options.
Company-paid maternity and parental leave beyond state-mandated leave policies.
Pre-tax commuter and parking benefits.
LifeBalance membership discounts for outdoor activities, arts, health, and fitness; pet and car insurance discounts; LegalShield financial services; and relaxation and stress-management tools.
Plum Benefits discounts on shows, travel, car rentals, and other offerings.
Tuition reimbursement of up to $5,000 annually, plus opportunities for relevant conferences and career development events through Kapitus Academy and the LSA plan.
Reimbursement for work-related travel.
Paid time off and sick time.
401(k) plan managed through Fidelity, with a company match of 25% of employee contributions up to 6% of annual salary.