Sr Lead Product Manager, Risk Decisioning

PayPal • San Jose, CA

1d • $178,500 - $291,500 • Hybrid

About The Position

PayPal is seeking a Senior Lead Product Manager to lead product direction for a risk domain across a portfolio of strategies. In partnership with risk strategy leaders, this role sets the domain vision and multi-year strategy, determines investment priorities, and translates outcomes such as loss reduction, approval rates, and customer experience into product plans. The position will help shape PayPal’s next-generation Risk Decisioning Platform, move strategies from legacy systems into full production, launch new strategies, and use experimentation and automation to continuously optimize results. The role leads cross-functional pods, tracks captured savings with business partners, represents the domain to executive stakeholders, and mentors other product managers.

The Senior Lead Product Manager drives product strategy with cross-functional stakeholders and plans architectural roadmaps that balance innovation, technical implementation, regulatory requirements, time to market, customer needs, and profitability. The role uses customer research, analytics, market analysis, and competitive analysis to inform decisions; oversees product profitability measures, including budgets; and establishes operating mechanisms that promote execution and accountability. It partners with product and technology leadership, content strategists, data scientists, product designers, and user experience researchers in a dynamic environment.

The role requires at least eight years of relevant experience and a bachelor’s degree, or an equivalent combination of education and experience. Preferred qualifications include substantial product experience in risk domains, expertise in risk decisioning and metrics, experience managing multi-team portfolios and platform transitions, and the ability to influence executives and lead delivery across teams. The position follows PayPal’s balanced hybrid model for most employees: three days in the office and two days at the office or home workspace. Travel is 10 percent.

Requirements

• At least 8 years of relevant experience and a bachelor’s degree, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Deep risk-domain expertise, technical fluency, and executive presence.
• Significant experience building products in fraud, account integrity, credit, or another risk domain in close partnership with risk strategy leaders.
• Track record of setting a multi-year product vision and strategy for a business domain, balancing near-term delivery with longer-term investments.
• Experience leading product for a multi-team risk portfolio alongside business owners and reporting outcomes to executive stakeholders.
• Deep knowledge of risk decisioning and tuning, including rules, machine-learning models, features, step-up and friction treatments, and the tradeoffs between losses and customer experience.
• Strong quantitative skills, including defining and interpreting loss, catch, false-positive, and approval-rate metrics; prioritizing portfolio opportunities; and connecting product changes to business impact.
• Experience launching products through controlled rollouts and experimentation, including champion/challenger tests and staged traffic ramps.
• Experience shaping platform roadmaps from the business side, translating domain needs into clear priorities for data science, modeling, and platform teams, and resolving competing demands.
• Experience leading major platform transitions, such as moving risk strategies off legacy systems while protecting performance.
• Experience mentoring product managers and establishing repeatable product practices.
• Ability to influence executive stakeholders and drive milestone-based delivery across many teams.

Responsibilities

• Set product vision and multi-year strategy for a risk domain across a portfolio of strategies, partnering with risk strategy leaders.
• Determine investment priorities and translate business outcomes—including loss reduction, approval rates, and customer experience—into product plans.
• Help shape the next-generation Risk Decisioning Platform and lead migrations of strategies from legacy systems to full production.
• Launch new risk strategies and use experimentation and automation to optimize performance.
• Lead cross-functional product pods and drive milestone-based delivery across teams.
• Track captured savings and business outcomes with business partners, and represent the domain to executives.
• Mentor product managers and establish repeatable product practices.
• Drive product strategy with cross-functional stakeholders in alignment with a shared product or platform vision.
• Plan architectural roadmaps that balance innovation, technical implementation, regulatory requirements, time to market, customer needs, and profitability.
• Incorporate customer experience and needs into product requirements and decisions.
• Establish data-gathering mechanisms and metrics to assess product success, including usability studies, research, and market analysis.
• Lead analytics, customer discovery, market research, and competitive analysis workstreams to support data-driven decisions.
• Oversee product profitability measures, including budget.
• Establish operational mechanisms for execution and accountability, including product, operating, and business reviews.
• Partner with product and technology leadership, content strategists, data scientists, product designers, and user experience researchers.
• Maintain execution and efficiency in a changing environment where processes are fluid and creative solutions are expected.

Benefits

• Comprehensive, choice-based wellbeing programs supporting physical, emotional, and financial wellbeing.
• Generous paid time off.
• Healthcare coverage for employees and their families.
• Resources to support financial security and mental health.
• Additional compensation may include an annual performance bonus, equity, or other incentive compensation, as applicable.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior