Founding Product Manager, 0–1 Products

Infusion Marketing

2d•$150,000 - $200,000•Remote

About The Position

OptimaFI is seeking a Founding Product Manager to create new and complementary products for community financial institutions. This role focuses on building new products from scratch, proving their market viability, and bringing them to market, rather than managing existing roadmaps or processing tickets. The first product focus will be on Household Insights. This is a hands-on builder role, working collaboratively with a designer, engineers, and AI tools. The ideal candidate will be comfortable with a build-to-learn approach and will report to the CPO, working closely with engineering, design, sales, success, and banking SMEs to translate customer knowledge into product strategies that drive adoption, retention, and revenue.

Requirements

Experience building a product or product line from inception to completion, not just maintaining or inheriting existing products.
AI-native, with AI integrated into your workflow and demonstrable experience using it.
Clear and concise communication skills, both written and verbal.
Experience making significant bets with real consequences (budget, headcount, build-vs-buy) and the ability to articulate the reasoning and lessons learned, including mistakes.
Ability to operate effectively and make good decisions in unstructured environments.
Ability to hold a well-reasoned position in the face of disagreement and change your mind when presented with evidence.
Commercial experience linking product decisions to adoption, retention, revenue, or share of wallet.

Nice To Haves

Experience in Fintech, community banking, credit union, or another regulated B2B environment.
A sharp 0-1 builder who can learn the domain is preferred over a domain expert who lacks 0-1 building experience.

Responsibilities

Find the real problem by talking to bankers and credit union operators to identify patterns and distinguish repeatable market problems from one-off requests.
Make decisions about what is worth building and what is not, and own those decisions.
Build to learn by prototyping and testing, and discontinue initiatives that do not work, using responsible testing methods like pilots and prototypes.
Utilize AI as a force multiplier for thinking and problem-solving.
Ship real products used by customers by working through trade-offs with engineering.
Define success metrics before building and track performance against those metrics, communicating in terms of financial outcomes.