Lead Product Manager

Ascend•San Francisco, CA

3d•Onsite

About The Position

Ascend is seeking a Lead Product Manager to shape the future of its core money movement products. This role involves defining product vision and strategy, partnering with existing product managers, and eventually owning the product area. The products cover a wide range of financial operations including integrations, invoicing, payments, receivables, financing, payouts, funds flow, and the entire payment lifecycle. A key aspect of this role is leveraging AI to automate complex financial operations for enterprise customers, reducing manual work and improving efficiency. The position requires a blend of strategic thinking and hands-on technical product management, involving direct customer interaction, writing detailed specifications, and collaborating closely with engineering to define system behavior and make critical tradeoffs. The successful candidate will be responsible for driving measurable improvements in product adoption, operational efficiency, automation, and revenue.

Requirements

6+ years of product management experience.
3+ years of experience owning the vision, strategy, and outcomes for a major product area.
Proven track record of translating product strategy into successful launches and measurable customer and business results.
Experience building for enterprise customers with complex workflows and integration requirements.
Hands-on experience writing product and technical specifications with clear requirements, edge cases, and acceptance criteria.
Technical and analytical fluency to collaborate with engineers on APIs, data models, and interconnected systems.
Ability to use data to guide decisions.
Clear communication skills to articulate a compelling vision, make tradeoffs, and align cross-functional teams.

Nice To Haves

B2B product experience in fintech, billing, or payments.
Experience in insurance, premium finance, lending, or loan management systems.
Experience building public APIs, platform integrations, or financial infrastructure at scale.
Experience building AI products or applying AI to financial workflows.

Responsibilities

Learn Ascend's platform, customer workflows, and money movement processes within the first 30 days.
Engage with customers to understand their financial operations, pain points, and future needs.
Collaborate with Engineering to understand APIs, data models, system behavior, and product dependencies.
Review existing AI and automation to identify areas of success and opportunities for improvement.
Present an initial assessment of key opportunities backed by customer feedback and data.
Define a product vision and strategy based on customer needs and business goals within the first 60 days.
Establish baseline metrics for operational efficiency (e.g., manual touches, exception rates) and set reduction targets.
Develop a quarterly roadmap with clear priorities, tradeoffs, and expected outcomes.
Write product and technical specifications for top initiatives, including workflows, system requirements, edge cases, and acceptance criteria.
Align product, engineering, and leadership on priorities, sequencing, and success metrics.
Own and evolve the product vision beyond 90 days, taking increasing ownership of the product area.
Integrate AI into core product workflows to automate manual tasks and exception handling.
Track automation performance, identify shortcomings, and drive continuous improvement.
Build scalable capabilities and tooling to support enterprise complexity and growth.
Lead initiatives from discovery through launch and adoption, ensuring accountability for results.
Collaborate with Engineering on API requirements, data flows, failure scenarios, and system tradeoffs.
Utilize prototypes and early releases to test ideas and make scope and sequencing decisions.
Partner with Design, Engineering, GTM, and Operations to simplify financial workflows and manage cross-functional impacts.