Product Owner, Integrated Payables

Zact•Sunnyvale, CA

About The Position

The Product Owner, Integrated Payables is a hands-on product leader responsible for defining, prioritizing, and delivering Zact’s accounts payable and business payments product, which banks offer to commercial customers. The product manages the end-to-end process from invoice receipt through reconciled payment: invoices arrive by email, upload, or payment instruction file; are OCR-processed and coded; route through approvals; are paid by virtual card, ACH, or check; and post back to the customer’s accounting system. The role combines Product Owner and Technical Product Manager responsibilities. The Product Owner owns both what gets built and how it gets delivered, serving as the engineering team’s day-to-day product partner, attending every sprint call, keeping the backlog prioritized with the Bank Delivery team, and driving features from requirements through release. The role requires deep knowledge of AP and payments workflows, technical fluency to make informed trade-offs, and responsibility for keeping delivery on track. The position supports making Integrated Payables a compelling product for banks and growing virtual card adoption and revenue.

Requirements

At least 5 years of experience as a Product Owner, Product Manager, or Business Analyst, ideally on B2B SaaS or fintech products.
Ability to write clear user stories, acceptance criteria, and functional requirements for complex workflows.
Hands-on experience with Agile/Scrum teams and leading backlog refinement, sprint planning, and sprint reviews.
Comfort working in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment where priorities evolve and initiative matters.
Experience owning end-to-end delivery as a Technical Product Manager, TPM, or Product Owner without dedicated project management support.
Technical fluency to engage engineers on APIs, data models, integrations, and system design, and make sound scope and sequencing trade-offs.
Experience planning releases, managing dependencies across teams and external partners, and keeping delivery on track.
Proficiency with Agile delivery tools such as Jira or Azure DevOps.
Strong understanding of AP processes, including invoice capture, coding, approvals, PO matching, and payment runs.
Working knowledge of B2B payment rails, including virtual cards, ACH, wires, and checks, and of vendor enrollment and card acceptance programs.
Familiarity with OCR/AI invoice extraction, payment instruction files, and accounting or ERP integrations.
Understanding of cash- and accrual-based accounting and how AP data flows to the general ledger.
Ability to break complex business problems into buildable increments and make sound prioritization trade-offs.
Comfort using data to measure product performance and inform decisions.
Strong attention to detail, especially regarding edge cases, exceptions, and controls in financial workflows.
Ability to work closely with engineering, QA, design, Bank Delivery, sales, and partner teams.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including explaining technical concepts to business audiences and business needs to technical teams.
Ability to engage directly with banks, business customers, and partners to gather requirements and validate solutions.
BS/BA degree or equivalent professional experience.

Nice To Haves

SQL or reporting-tool experience.
Past experience at Bill.com, AvidXchange, or MineralTree.
Experience with AP automation or payables platforms such as Tipalti.
Experience in commercial banking, treasury management, commercial cards, or card processing.
Familiarity with fraud prevention, payment security, and compliance requirements in financial services.

Responsibilities

Build a deep understanding of Integrated Payables, business-customer AP workflows, the bank distribution model, and the competitive landscape.
Own the Integrated Payables product vision and backlog, balancing bank commitments, revenue opportunities, technical debt, and long-term direction.
Translate business needs into user stories, acceptance criteria, workflows, and edge cases for engineering.
Define and improve invoice capture and OCR/AI extraction, PIF imports, GL coding, PO matching, approval workflows, and payment authorization.
Drive payment execution across single-use and multi-use virtual cards, ACH, and checks, with emphasis on increasing card adoption.
Own vendor-facing capabilities, including vendor enrollment, the vendor portal, remittance advice, and supplier card acceptance programs.
Ensure product controls include role-based permissions, multi-factor authentication for sensitive actions, fraud prevention, and audit trails.
Identify opportunities to apply AI and automation across the payables lifecycle.
Attend all Integrated Payables sprint calls, including stand-ups, refinement, planning, reviews, and retrospectives.
Own end-to-end feature delivery by planning releases, tracking progress, managing dependencies, and clearing blockers.
Work with engineering on technical design, APIs, data flows, and integrations; make scope and sequencing trade-offs.
Coordinate delivery across dependent teams and partners, including processors, card issuing and payment rails, accounting and ERP integrations, and QA.
Manage delivery risks, issues, scope or timeline changes, and communicate status to leadership, Bank Delivery, and sales.
Accept completed work against acceptance criteria, lead user acceptance testing, and ensure release quality.
Own release readiness, including release notes, product documentation, and enablement content for banks, sales, and customer success.
Work with Bank Delivery to understand bank requirements, implementation timelines, and go-live commitments.
Groom and reprioritize the backlog based on bank needs and ensure commitments are reflected in sprint plans and delivered on time.
Participate in bank implementation discussions as the product expert, clarify requirements, set expectations, and resolve product questions.
Triage bank-reported issues and enhancement requests with Bank Delivery and support, and incorporate them into the prioritized backlog.
Engage banks, business customers, sales, and implementation teams to gather feedback, validate solutions, and support demos and opportunities.
Establish and use product and delivery metrics, including sprint predictability, on-time bank commitments, straight-through processing rates, and card payment mix.