Senior Product Manager - 529 Prepaid

Vestwell•Austin, NY

17h•Hybrid

About The Position

Vestwell Government Savings powers state-sponsored savings programs, including 529 college savings, ABLE, child savings accounts, and state auto-IRA programs. The Senior Product Manager will help build a full recordkeeping and saver experience for a prepaid tuition 529 program, where families purchase tuition credits at current rates rather than invest in a portfolio. This is a greenfield build with a fixed deadline, requiring a hands-on product leader who can own complex, ambiguous areas with minimal direction and work closely with a delivery lead PM and partners across engineering, QA, design, operations, servicing, relationship management, and marketing. The role owns complex functional areas end to end, from discovery and requirements through testing and launch, and ensures the system's behavior is clearly understood. The Product Manager contributes to product and functional requirements, acceptance criteria, and test cases; builds strong relationships across operations, engineering, QA, and business stakeholders; and helps establish strong product practices on the team. The role also guides other PMs and represents product to internal teams, clients, and partners. The position is based in the New York City, Austin, or King of Prussia office and participates in Vestwell's hybrid in-office operation. The expected base salary range is $150,000–$160,000, with eligibility for the Company Bonus Pool and new-hire equity.

Requirements

At least 5 years of Product Management experience, including ownership of a large, cross-functional initiative end to end.
Experience building complex financial or transaction-based systems, such as recordkeeping, payments, or ledgers.
Exceptional business and systems analysis skills.
Ability to thoroughly understand and document business and functional requirements and business use cases.
Experience driving the software development lifecycle in an Agile environment.
Ability to work in a fast-paced, project-oriented environment and meet deadlines under tight time constraints.
Ability to work independently and collaboratively across Product, Engineering, QA, and Operations.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
Ability to interface with internal stakeholders, executives, and external clients.
Experience with SQL and data integrations, such as APIs, JSON, XML, or file-based integrations.

Nice To Haves

Experience mentoring or guiding other Product Managers.
Experience with 529, ABLE, or other government savings programs.
Experience with data conversion or platform migration.
Comfort using AI tools in day-to-day Product Management workflows.

Responsibilities

Understand program goals and stakeholder needs and translate them into buildable features with clear intended impact.
Own discovery and requirements for assigned functional areas, including business requirements, functional requirements, and use cases.
Partner with engineering to break down requirements into stories with clear acceptance criteria.
Provide iterative feedback to the development team, identify bugs, and help resolve them.
Complete functional testing and provide product sign-off when features are ready for production release.
Work with the delivery lead PM to keep scope, dependencies, and risks visible across squads and make tradeoff decisions as new information emerges.
Partner with operations, client teams, and external partners to ensure the solution works in day-to-day operations.
Use data to validate assumptions, investigate issues, and inform product decisions.
Lead discovery for ambiguous, high-risk areas and frame options and tradeoffs for leadership.
Mentor and guide other PMs, review requirements, and raise the quality bar.
Represent product with clients and external partners and drive alignment across teams without requiring escalation.
Contribute to product requirements, functional requirements, acceptance criteria, and test cases from discovery through launch.