Senior Product Manager

About Highnote 

Founded in 2020 by a team of leaders from Braintree, PayPal, and Lending Club, Highnote is an embedded finance company that sets the standard in modern card platform management. As an all-in-one card issuer processor and program management platform, we provide digital-first organizations with the flexibility to seamlessly issue and process payment cards, embed virtual and physical card payments, and integrate ledger and wallet functionalities—empowering businesses to drive growth and profitability.

We’ve raised $145M+ and have grown our team to 125+ employees. Headquartered in San Francisco, we’ve managed to build one of the most advanced payments teams in the industry, with team members in 25+ US states. 

Operating through our core values of customer obsession, executional excellence, intentional inclusion, we’re helping businesses grow for the future by creating the payment products demanded by tomorrow, with the ability to solve for use cases that don’t exist yet.

We are fast-moving, hands-on, and strongly believe everyone deserves a seat at the table. We believe we’re unlocking incredible opportunities that can change the future of payments, as long as we have the right people to make it happen. 

Job Description

Highnote is looking for a Senior Product Manager to build out our unified payments platform. This is an opportunity to bring your prior experience and tool kit to a high growth company where you will work with Customers, Design, Sales, Operations, and Engineering leadership to build the most modern payments platform for Card Issuance, Acquiring, and Credit servicing. 

Most importantly, you will be an evangelist for our internal and external customers’ needs. Ideal candidates will have experience in ambiguous environments executing a variety of functions to get the job done. You will need to have knowledge of payment platforms and implementing API first products.

What you’ll need to be wildly successful

The Tactile Stuff:

• Empathy for customers and an ability to glean insights from customer interviews. You have an innate ability to feel the customer’s pain and put yourself in their shoes. You articulate the why behind the what with clarity and defend your position in your sleep.
• Ability to unblock your team with detailed product requirements and expert communication skills. You can keep a meeting on track single handedly by clearly articulating problems. You are able to translate customer and operational insights into product requirements that are easily digestible by your team.  
• The ability to think strategically and translate it to detailed requirements. You are able to align delivering customer delight with the business needs. You can work from both ends to define a roadmap, create data flows, mockups, and prioritize even in the face of extreme ambiguity. 
• Robust data analytics skills. You enjoy discovering meaning and developing applicable logic from data analytics. You’re able to not only work with data, but create metrics to quantify product success
• Experience shipping world-class products. You have a tool kit of product processes that you’ve used to successfully discover, define, and deliver delightful products for your customers. You're flexible and know which tools to use when, yet you are constantly seeking out new resources to add to your kit. 
• High accountability for execution and ownership. We are not project managers but project management is part of what you do. You’re not afraid to hold people accountable, including yourself. You are an expert in your domain and create trust that results in shared ownership of execution.

The Strategic kind of stuff:

• Experience in Payments or Financial Services and to say “you learn quickly” is a gross understatement. You have a working knowledge of building and extending payment platforms, money movement, card issuing products, finance, or accounting platforms. And if you don’t, you dive deeply to research areas of opportunity, translating them into product requirements. 
• Innovative, but detail-oriented personality. You have a relentless focus on enhancing the customer experience while keeping track of every detail. You maintain a healthy backlog for your team, and are able to balance long term and short term needs of your product and the business. 
• Strong sense of self.  You are self-aware, know your strengths, and where you have blind spots that you want to improve. You are constantly seeking knowledge and know when to rely on your network of experts. You take feedback easily, as you know it is a gift from others believing in you.

What you’ll be doing

• Shipping quality products, quickly and in most likely in phases
• Partnering with engineers, designers, marketing, sales, operations, risk, and finance to ensure what you are shipping is aligned with the customer’s needs and the product strategy.
• Performing quantitative and qualitative analysis to identify opportunities to improve the product experience and drive business value
• Defining and driving a roadmap for the development of the product platform
• Prioritizing your product backlog to maximize the customer experience and business value
• Obtaining customer feedback to inform company goals, deepen platform domains capabilities, and support the company’s strategy
• Identifying and understanding the market, customer, and business needs to build products that resonate
• Influencing leadership to align with your product strategy and prioritize your highest value initiatives

Bonus Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience driving product delivery embedded in a cross-functional team 
• Ability to gather data needed for product decisions (SQL, Tableau, DBVisualizer, or similar methods)
• Accounting, finance, risk, fraud, payments, or banking experience
• Demonstrated success developing inventive solutions to complex problems
• Experience with API first products
• Experience presenting to and collaborating with leadership

Why Highnote?

• We’re a startup that allows for our employees to truly build from the ground up and impact every layer of our organization. 
• We’re a team of payments obsessed individuals. While some of us come from the fintech world, some of us don’t. We value the varied backgrounds and the diverse perspectives of our employees. 
• We’re small on hierarchy and big on growth. We’re a flat organization that allows everyone to have direct exposure to our leadership team. We are looking for builders who thrive in ambiguity. 
• We’re backed by Oak HC/FT, Costanoa Ventures, Adams Street Partners, Westcap, and Pinegrove Venture Partners. Angel Investors include Bill Ready (CEO at Pinterest) and Renaud Laplanche (Co-Founder & CEO of Upgrade).

Highnote benefits

• Flexible Paid Time Off 
• 100% healthcare coverage + 75% coverage for dependents
• 401k program
• Paid Parental Leave: Up to 16 weeks paid leave for the birth parent, and up to 6 weeks paid leave for the non-birth parent
• Equity in Highnote
• Stipend to build out your home office; internet and phone reimbursement
• At Highnote we have built a total rewards philosophy that includes fair, equitable, geo-based compensation that is performance and potential based. Our compensation packages are competitive based on robust market research and are a combination of a cash salary, equity, and benefits. In compliance with the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, the annual salary range for applicants is $175,000-$225,000. 

Please note that positions located in San Francisco are hybrid and include core working days of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in office.  We provide flexible work options based on distance from our downtown SF office. Highnote believes in the power of face-to-face, personal connection. As a result, we prioritize in-person candidates. 

Highnote is a diverse and inclusive company committed to growing a diverse and inclusive team. We invite people from all backgrounds and identities to apply. We do not discriminate based on gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, race, religion, age, national origin, citizenship, disability, pregnancy status, veteran status, or any other characteristics protected by US federal state or local laws, or the laws of the country or jurisdiction where you work. Additionally, we encourage everyone to share which pronouns you wish for us to use when addressing you (i.e.: she/her, he/him, they/them, etc).