Payments Product Owner

Credit Union of Colorado•Denver, CO

8d•$89,600 - $112,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Payment Services Product Owner is a senior individual contributor responsible for the lifecycle, technical readiness, vendor governance, and measurable performance of assigned payment products. The role translates product requirements into end-user experiences that meet payment roadmap commitments and leads through expertise, governance, facilitation, and mentorship rather than direct people management. Decision-making is exercised within delegated product responsibilities; legal, procurement, budget, contract, architecture, and risk acceptance authorities remain with their authorized functions. The Product Owner owns product strategy and multiyear roadmaps, prioritizes backlogs, develops business cases and investment recommendations, and evaluates emerging payment capabilities. The role leads technical product analysis and readiness, release governance, incident analysis, vendor relationships and third-party governance, and complex cross-functional payment programs. It also aligns stakeholders, reports on product and vendor performance, tracks risks and corrective actions, and provides technical leadership and mentorship to peers and stakeholders. The position is hybrid-eligible. Physical duties typically involve remaining stationary for long periods, occasional lifting or moving of up to 10 pounds, occasional movement around an office, and frequent computer and office-equipment use. The employee may need to position themselves to maintain computers, including under desks and in a server closet, frequently communicate with members and coworkers, and travel to Credit Union locations as needed. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university is preferred, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Minimum five years of related payment experience at a financial institution or payment facilitator.
Minimum three years of product owner/manager and/or equivalent vendor management experience.
Demonstrated experience leading complex, cross-functional payment projects or programs from business case and requirements through implementation, stabilization, and post-implementation review.
Demonstrated experience governing vendor performance, including service levels, roadmap commitments, corrective actions, and escalation.
Experience collaborating with business-line owners, vendors, and stakeholders to integrate payment experiences, and developing business cases, performance measures, and executive-level reporting.
High degree of knowledge of payment channels and technical acumen to analyze and resolve issues involving APIs, batch files, tokenization, middleware, and integrations.
Ability to synthesize business, technical, risk, vendor, and financial information to define a path and make informed decisions, including in ambiguous situations.
Ability to lead through influence, facilitate cross-functional governance, negotiate priorities, escalate constructively, and mentor peers without supervisory authority.
Ability to organize and prioritize work, balance competing demands and deadlines, and function autonomously within delegated authority.
Ability to read, analyze, and interpret contracts, service levels, technical procedures, and governmental regulations in partnership with authorized experts.
Excellent analytical, written, verbal, documentation, facilitation, executive presentation, and teamwork skills, with demonstrated ability to drive innovation.

Responsibilities

Own the strategy and multiyear roadmap for assigned payment products, including objectives, target outcomes, capability sequencing, dependencies, and tradeoffs.
Maintain prioritized product backlogs using member and employee feedback, market trends, risk, strategic fit, effort, and expected value.
Develop business cases and investment recommendations, and measure realized benefits after implementation.
Evaluate emerging payment capabilities, including AI, automation, and personalization, and recommend adoption decisions.
Own product requirements and technical readiness, including front-end and back-end components, dependencies, data flows, and controls.
Lead product-side analysis of APIs, batch and real-time file transmissions, middleware, tokenization, digital channel integrations, core system dependencies, and emerging technologies.
Define and validate requirements, control expectations, acceptance criteria, and test scenarios.
Govern release readiness, including change impact, test evidence, procedures, training, support readiness, stabilization, and go/no-go decisions or recommendations within delegated authority.
Lead product-side incident analysis, root cause evaluation, business impact assessment, and corrective action tracking.
Own assigned vendor relationships through due diligence, selection, implementation, performance governance, escalation, renewal recommendation, transition, and exit planning, as delegated.
Establish vendor governance cadences and scorecards, and monitor contractual commitments, billing, invoices, service levels, deficiencies, and corrective actions with internal partners.
Align vendor roadmaps with product strategy and lead renewal readiness and exit-planning analysis, including negotiation recommendations.
Lead complex, cross-functional payment projects and programs from business case and requirements through planning, execution, testing, implementation, stabilization, measurement, and post-implementation review.
Govern product-side scope, milestones, dependencies, risks, decisions, stakeholder alignment, status reporting, and delivery outcomes.
Set integrated priorities across regulatory deadlines, production risk, strategic initiatives, and capacity; escalate conflicts requiring leadership decisions and partner with enterprise project managers when assigned.
Lead cross-functional product governance across Payments, IT, middleware, digital services, Operations, Marketing, Compliance, Risk, and Finance.
Represent assigned payment products in departmental and enterprise forums and deliver recurring executive-ready reporting on roadmap delivery, product and vendor performance, risks, and decisions needed.
Define, monitor, and report product performance measures and lead corrective action for material variances.
Identify, document, track mitigation of, and escalate product-side operational, technology, implementation, third-party, member, and regulatory risks; partner with Risk Management, Internal Audit, and IT to translate requirements into controls and procedures.
Provide technical leadership, standards, knowledge transfer, and mentorship to peers and stakeholders without supervisory responsibility.
Prioritize and sequence assigned product work within approved strategy, funding, capacity, regulatory commitments, and governance parameters; define or recommend requirements, acceptance criteria, performance targets, and business readiness criteria.
Make documented business acceptance and escalation decisions within delegated authority; require issue analysis, action plans, and escalation when vendor or internal commitments are at risk.
Recommend investment, renewal, remediation, replacement, or retirement decisions and remain accountable for roadmap delivery, product and vendor performance outcomes, and corrective-action follow-through.
Perform additional duties and responsibilities as assigned.