Director, Margin Product Owner

RBC•Jersey City, NJ

2d•$160,000 - $225,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Margin Product Owner is responsible for defining, prioritizing, and guiding the development of margin management products and capabilities to maximize value and alignment with business objectives. This role sits within the Funding, Liquidity & Payment Services portfolio and reports to Product Lead, Funding, Liquidity & Payment Services. The Margin Product Owner translates business strategy into clear roadmaps, manages product backlogs, and ensures delivery of innovative margin solutions that enable the firm's collateral management to function globally while maintaining operational integrity, control, and scalability.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in business, technology, or equivalent experience required.
15+ years of working experience in the financial industry, preferably in Margins or Collateral management.
15+ years of in-depth knowledge in margin and collateral operations including initial margin and variation margin processing, margin calls and disputes, collateral movements and substitutions, and segregation and third-party custody models.
7+ years of hands-on agile development in a product owner role, including creating user stories and backlog refinement.
5–10 years of experience in product, platform, or transformation leadership.
Prior experience working in a large, geographically dispersed, matrixed organization.
Understanding of software development processes, timelines, and technical constraints well enough to make informed trade-offs.
Knowledge of Agile and Scrum methodologies, including how sprints, user stories, and backlogs function.
Familiarity with product management frameworks like OKRs, user journey mapping, and competitive analysis.
In-depth knowledge of margin and collateral operations including initial margin and variation margin processing, margin calls and disputes, collateral movements and substitutions, and segregation and third-party custody models.
Expertise in global margin and collateral regulations, including uncleared margin rules, clearing house margin models, and client asset protection regimes.
Strong organizational skills and ability to see tasks through to completion without significant guidance.
A startup mindset—comfortable with quick pace, quick change, and ambiguities.
Strong communication and presentation skills are essential.
The ability to explain complex margin, collateral, and regulatory concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Excellent analytical abilities to interpret operational data, identify trends, and make evidence-based decisions.
Strategic thinking to connect daily tasks to long-term business objectives while anticipating regulatory and liquidity impacts before they materialize.

Nice To Haves

CTP (Certified Treasury Professional) certification preferred but not required.
Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) certification a plus.
Project Management Professional (PMP) certification a plus.
Preferred: Project Management Professional (PMP) Certified or Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO).

Responsibilities

Articulates the vision for collateral and margin management capabilities spanning initial margin, variation margin, margin calls, collateral movements, segregation models, and settlement processes.
Works closely with stakeholders, customers, and leadership to understand market needs, competitive positioning, and strategic priorities.
Translates business goals into a clear roadmap for margin functionalities and communicates this vision consistently to development teams.
Maintains the margin product backlog—an ordered list of features, improvements, and fixes.
Writes user stories and acceptance criteria, ensuring requirements are clear and testable.
Continuously refines and reprioritizes the backlog based on business value, customer feedback, technical dependencies, and operational constraints.
Balances short-term needs against long-term vision while considering regulatory and compliance obligations.
Analyzes metrics, user feedback, and usage data to inform prioritization and make evidence-based decisions.
Tracks key performance indicators including margin disputes, settlement fails, aged exposures, manual processing touchpoints, and collateral velocity.
Validates hypotheses through releases and champions a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement around collateral efficiency and data quality.
Coordinates with compliance, sales, operations, and support teams on feature launches and product rollouts.
Determines release timing, provides training and support to teams in Operations, Client Services, Sales, and other functional areas, and ensures the organization is ready to support new functionality.
Oversees onboarding of new products, counterparties, and clearing models without compromising controls.
Acts as the business owner for margin platform initiatives, data architecture improvements, and technology migrations.
Partners with Technology to drive automation of margin calculations, calls, and settlements; reduce manual touchpoints and spreadsheet dependencies; and improve data quality, lineage, and real-time visibility.
Owns the operational requirements for collateral platforms and ensures data reliability for stress testing and liquidity reporting.
Collaborates with Risk, Compliance, and Audit teams to design and maintain a robust control framework covering margin accuracy, timeliness, eligibility, concentration, haircut controls, settlement fails, and aging exposure.
Ensures product development aligns with global margin and collateral regulations, including uncleared margin rules, clearing house margin models, segregation requirements, and client asset protection regimes.
Translates regulatory change into executable product requirements and roadmap updates.
Supports regulatory exams, issue responses, and remediation programs related to margin operations.
Balances standardization across regions with respect for local regulatory requirements.
Acts as the first line owner for collateral-related product risks and operational considerations.
Ensures product design incorporates safeguards against margin calculation errors, settlement failures, and regulatory breach.
Supports dispute resolution frameworks and service standards while ensuring products are scalable without compromising control discipline.
Serves as the bridge between development teams and business stakeholders across engineering, operations, risk, compliance, legal, liquidity, treasury, and front office teams.
Gathers requirements from counterparties, clients, regulators, and internal teams while managing competing interests.
Advocates for decisions that serve the product, risk management, and business best and communicates progress, roadmap changes, and product decisions to stakeholders transparently.
Ensures collateral operations support firm liquidity objectives and enable predictable, transparent, and controlled margin experiences for clients and counterparties.
Utilizes negotiation and conflict resolution skills to manage competing priorities and build consensus among diverse stakeholders.
Leads cross-functional teams without direct authority.
Works well with technical and non-technical resources across operations, risk, compliance, legal, liquidity, treasury, and front office.
Commands credibility across Front Office, Risk, and regulators.
Produces business process maps and operational workflows.
Works with JIRA in agile squad structure.

Benefits

Competitive compensation
Flexible benefits
401(k) program with company-matching contributions
Health, dental, vision, life, disability insurance
Paid-time off
Leaders who support your development through coaching and managing opportunities.
Ability to make a difference and lasting impact.
Work in a dynamic, collaborative, progressive, and high-performing team.
Opportunities to do challenging work.
Opportunities to build close relationships with clients.