Product Operations Manager

Clearwater Analytics•New York, NY

1d•Onsite

About The Position

Our company sits at an inflection point. Serving the investment management industry from the heart of New York, we have the product depth and client relationships to become the defining product-led platform in our space. The Product Operations Leader will be the connective tissue across all senior Product leaders and their teams — driving the cadences, frameworks, and discipline that turn strong product vision into predictable, client-centric delivery. This is a strategic role for someone who understands how great product organizations work, who can influence without direct authority, and who thrives in the complexity of regulated financial services markets serving Insurance companies, Asset Managers, Hedge Funds, and Asset Owners. The Program Manager is responsible for identifying and finalizes project/implementation scope. Develops detailed implementation plans including internal, client and third-party resourcing. Manages and coordinates with internal, client and third-party resources to ensure a successful, on-time quality implementation per plan. Generates weekly status reports, holds weekly status meetings with client and project team. Schedules and leads steering committee meetings with C-level client decision makers and Clearwater senior management. Serves as a trusted relationship manager responsible for ensuring timely, accurate, and thorough responses to all client inquiries and a successful transition to the steady-state servicing team. Manages and reports on budget for implementations. Possess the ability to seek out, recommend, and implement continuous service improvements within the project timeline (and future projects). Leads the transition from Sales team to Global Delivery team pre-project kick-off and from Global Delivery to Client Services upon implementation.

Requirements

7–10 years of progressive experience in Product Operations, Product Management, or a closely related operational role within a B2B technology or SaaS company.
Demonstrated experience in investment management technology or financial services platforms serving Insurance, Asset Management, Hedge Fund, or Asset Owner clients.
Proven track record of building or scaling product operations functions — not just inheriting them — with experience supporting a product-led transition.
Strong understanding of AI and machine learning concepts, with hands-on experience evaluating or operationalizing AI capabilities within a product organization.
Strong analytical mindset — comfortable owning KPI frameworks, building dashboards, and turning raw data into actionable insights.
Exceptional ability to influence without authority; high emotional intelligence and credibility with senior peers.
Outstanding communication skills — written, verbal, and visual — able to translate operational complexity into clear narratives for executives.
Expert Technical skills in JIRA, Excel, Clarizen and Salesforce.
Explores, trials, and provides trusted recommendations for the use of other tools and technologies as use cases arise.
Financial Services Experience (Investment, Banking, Insurance, FinTech, etc).
Project manage in a matrix reporting environment.
Investment accounting and reporting knowledge.
Familiarity with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms and delivery model
Strong computer skills, including proficiency in Microsoft Office.
Excellent attention to detail and strong documentation skills.
Outstanding verbal and written communication skills.
Strong organizational and interpersonal skills.
Exceptional problem-solving abilities.
Bachelor’s and/or master’s in finance or accounting.
7+ years of relevant project management and implementation experience working with external clients.
Proven experience implementing software solutions within Asset Management, Market Data and/or Insurance space.
Consulting experience.
Securities or financial markets experience.
Experience of managing a team essential (7-15 people).

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with PLG frameworks (product-qualified leads, usage-based pricing, trial-to-paid funnels) in an enterprise context.
Experience with tools such as Aha, Jira, Pendo.
Experience with AI/ML platforms or tooling (e.g., OpenAI, AWS Bedrock, Databricks, Vertex AI) and familiarity with how AI is transforming financial services products.
Working knowledge of Agile, Dual-Track, or JTBD methodologies.
MBA or equivalent advanced degree, or commensurately deep operational experience.

Responsibilities

Drive the Product-Led Transformation: Own and champion the product-led growth (PLG) operating model, translating strategy into concrete programs, KPIs, and rituals across all product lines.
Define and institutionalize PLG metrics — activation rates, time-to-value, expansion revenue, product-qualified leads or cohorts.
Partner with Sales, Marketing, and Client Services to rebalance handoffs so that product usage data drives pipeline and retention decisions.
Run the Product Operating System: Design and steward the end-to-end product operating rhythm: quarterly and annual planning, roadmap reviews, portfolio prioritization, program setting, and retrospectives.
Create and maintain a single source of truth for product portfolio health — roadmap status, capacity, risk, and strategic alignment — surfaced to leadership in a consistent, trusted format.
Standardize product development processes (discovery, definition, delivery, measurement) across all product lines with consistency.
Own the product operations toolkit (Aha, Jira, Confluence, or equivalent), ensuring consistent usage, clean data, and meaningful reporting.
Build a product analytics framework tracking adoption, engagement, retention, and expansion metrics for each product line.
Partner with R&D Data Analytics team to establish reliable pipelines from product telemetry, CRM, and client feedback — delivering executive dashboards that quantify transformation progress.
Serve as Strategic Partner & Cross-Functional Leader: Act as a trusted advisor to each Senior Product Leaders on topics ranging from roadmap strategy to stakeholder management.
Lead cross-functional rituals — product reviews, launch readiness assessments, and retrospectives — bridging Product, Engineering, Sales, Marketing and Client Services.
Develop internal enablement materials — competitive positioning, product narratives, value frameworks — so go-to-market teams can articulate product value without requiring custom feature commitments.
Embed Financial Services Domain Expertise: Apply knowledge of investment management workflows, regulatory dynamics, and enterprise FinTech procurement cycles to calibrate product practices.
Champion a user-research culture with genuine insight into the decision-making realities of portfolio managers, risk officers, compliance teams, and C-suite buyers.
Leverage AI & Drive Product Innovation: Identify and evaluate opportunities to embed AI and machine learning capabilities into products — from intelligent automation and predictive analytics to generative AI features that enhance client workflows.
Establish frameworks for evaluating AI use cases across the product portfolio, ensuring initiatives are prioritized by client value, feasibility, and competitive differentiation.
Partner with Product leaders to integrate AI-assisted tooling into the product development lifecycle — accelerating discovery, prototyping, testing, and delivery.
Stay current on AI trends relevant to investment management (e.g., AI-driven risk models, automated compliance monitoring, intelligent document processing) and translate insights into actionable product opportunities.
Champion responsible AI practices — ensuring transparency, explainability, and regulatory compliance in all AI-powered product features.
Identifies and finalizes project/implementation scope.
Develops detailed implementation plans including internal, client and third-party resourcing.
Manages and coordinates with internal, client and third-party resources to ensure a successful, on time and with quality implementation per plan.
Generates weekly status reports, holds weekly status meetings with client and project team.
Schedules and leads steering committee meetings with C-level client decision makers and Clearwater senior management.
Manage and report on budget for implementation.
Seek out, recommend, and implement continuous service improvements.
Serves as a trusted relationship manager responsible for ensuring timely, accurate, and thorough responses to all client inquiries and a successful transition to the steady-state servicing team.
Be the bridge between various business stakeholders including Client Servicing team, Sales team, and Development team.
Ability to run multiple simultaneous implementations with minimal oversight.