Vice President of Product – Identity

PayPal•San Jose, CA

9d•$250,000 - $360,000•Hybrid

About The Position

As Vice President of Product – Identity, you will define and lead PayPal’s identity platform as a core piece of trust infrastructure for global commerce. You will operate at the intersection of consumer experience, large-scale distributed systems, and enterprise risk—building durable identity primitives that power intuitive experiences across PayPal’s ecosystem. This role owns the end-to-end identity stack: from user-facing authentication flows to the underlying abstractions, policies, and signals that enable safe, scalable commerce. With broad executive visibility and cross-functional sponsorship, you will shape both PayPal’s product roadmap and how identity is understood internally and externally—as a strategic platform rather than a collection of features. What You Will Do Set a Platform-Level Identity Vision Define what identity means at PayPal and articulate a long-term vision for identity as a reusable, extensible platform. Balance product-led experience design with principled system architecture, ensuring identity solutions are composable, interoperable, and built to evolve alongside regulatory and ecosystem shifts. Build Consumer-Grade Experiences on Deep Technical Foundations Lead the creation of identity experiences that feel simple, fast, and trustworthy to consumers and merchants, while being powered by sophisticated authentication, authorization, and risk systems. Drive clarity on where friction is intentional and protective, and where abstraction and automation can materially improve the user experience without compromising safety. Own Strategy Across the Identity Stack Develop and execute a multi-year strategy spanning identity primitives, platform APIs, policy engines, and experience layers. Leverage emerging technologies and signals to reduce false positives, improve decision quality, and unlock new commerce use cases—while maintaining high availability, resilience, and performance at global scale. Shape the Enterprise Narrative on Trust Infrastructure Act as a senior, credible voice across the company on identity, login, and trust systems. Clearly frame the tradeoffs between friction, risk, and experience, and align executives and teams around a shared mental model for why identity investments are foundational to PayPal’s long-term success. Drive Ecosystem and Industry Leadership Represent PayPal externally as a leader in identity for commerce. Participate in industry forums, standards bodies, and technical working groups, helping shape best practices and influencing the future direction of identity, authentication, and digital trust at scale. Lead Go-to-Market and Adoption Partner with Product, Engineering, Design, Go-to-Market, Sales, and Marketing to translate platform capabilities into compelling value propositions. Ensure strong feedback loops, disciplined launches, and rapid adoption across consumer and merchant segments. Own Business and Operating Outcomes Carry full accountability for commercial performance, platform health, and delivery commitments. Establish operating mechanisms that emphasize clarity, rigor, and accountability—using metrics, reviews, and executive readouts to guide prioritization and investment decisions.

Requirements

15+ years of experience building and scaling consumer-facing products and platforms, with senior leadership responsibility for large, technically complex domains.
Deep technical fluency and credibility with engineering teams, including experience with large-scale distributed systems, platform abstractions, and API-driven architectures.
Proven ability to deliver consumer-grade experiences in high-trust, regulated environments.
Experience operating at global scale within fintech, payments, eCommerce, or large consumer platforms.
Track record of influencing outcomes in highly matrixed organizations and aligning senior stakeholders around shared narratives and priorities.
Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to clearly and persuasively explain complex technical and risk concepts to executives, partners, and external audiences.

Nice To Haves

Demonstrated contributions to identity standards and frameworks (e.g., FIDO, OpenID, OAuth, WebAuthn) strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

Lead and scale a senior product organization, setting a high bar for consumer empathy, technical fluency, and systems thinking.
Articulate a clear, coherent product strategy that connects long-term platform investments to near-term business impact.
Deliver highly reliable, privacy-aware identity platforms that meet fintech-grade regulatory and risk requirements while enabling great experiences.
Influence outcomes across a complex, matrixed organization, partnering closely with Engineering, Design, Risk, Legal, Compliance, Operations, Finance, Sales, and external partners.
Drive data-informed decisions through experimentation, instrumentation, and continuous learning.
Own budgets, KPIs, and operating rhythms, including product reviews, business reviews, and executive forums.

Benefits

At PayPal, we’re committed to building an equitable and inclusive global economy. And we can’t do this without our most important asset-you. That’s why we offer comprehensive, choice-based programs, to support all aspects of personal wellbeing—physical, emotional, and financial—delivering meaningful value where it matters most.
We strive to create a flexible, balanced work culture with a holistic approach to benefits, including generous paid time off, healthcare coverage for you and your family, and resources to create financial security and support your mental health.

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