Senior Director of Product Management, Payments and Risk

Upwork ($UPWK) is the world’s work marketplace. We serve everyone from one-person startups to large, Fortune 100 enterprises with a powerful, trust-driven platform that enables companies and talent to work together in new ways that unlock their potential.

Last year, more than $3.8 billion of work was done through Upwork by skilled professionals who are gaining more control by finding work they are passionate about and innovating their careers.

The Payments team at Upwork manages over $3 billion in pay-ins and payouts annually across 180 countries. We are a company that believes in product led growth, and believe that Payments can drive inorganic growth. We are seeking an experienced and strategic Senior Director of Product to lead the strategic direction of our payments products and elevate our payments platform. At Upwork, we believe the customer experience is a direct reflection of our platform capabilities. Developing a platform that supports multiple geographies presents unique challenges, and we are looking for a leader who has successfully developed global product strategies that drive innovation and go-to-market efficiency. This role will collaborate with cross-functional partners like Accounting, Tax, Legal, Customer Success, with other product, engineering, design and analytics leaders across business units, and lead a team of product managers to enhance our Payments capabilities. This role will report to the GM of the Payments business unit and will be a key member of the Payments BU’s leadership team. 

Responsibilities:

• Strategic Leadership: Define and drive the product strategy and roadmap for Payments, aligning closely with functional partners. Set clear product prioritization, balancing immediate results with long-term investments in technology platforms. A core component of this responsibility is to keep in mind the global nature of Upwork’s customer footprint, market dynamics, prominent payment methods, and regulatory frameworks.

• Ownership and Communication: Own product commitments and business outcomes. Communicate strategies, roadmap and trade-offs effectively to senior leaders and partnering teams. Represent Payments led initiatives cross functionally as well be the primary thought partner from Payments on other Upwork initiatives. 

• Customer Advocacy and Experience: Keep customer front and center always, and collaborate closely across Product, Design, Product Marketing, Analytics and Customer Experience leaders to create intuitive customer experiences. Identify customer challenges and develop innovative solutions leveraging the best mix of product and programs. 

• Metrics and Insight: Define metrics and KPIs to measure the success of the product portfolio and make data-driven decisions to improve product performance. Conduct market research and competitive analysis to identify opportunities for innovation and competitive differentiation.

• Execution: Manage the product lifecycle from concept through launch and beyond, ensuring timely delivery of products to market. Advocate for efficiency improvements in product operations and PDLC.

• People Management: Mentor and guide team members. Foster an environment of innovation and high performance in the PM team. 

• Platform Development: Converge product and engineering thinking to judicious platform investments that translate business and marketplace requirements into versatile payments and risk platform capabilities, adaptable to multiple payment processors, payment types, and models. 

• Compliance and Collaboration: Partner cross-functionally to develop a comprehensive payments and tax compliance roadmap that meets the needs of internal and external stakeholders, safeguarding our customers from fraudulent activities, and keeps us compliant with network and regulatory standards.

Requirements:

• Extensive Experience:  8-10+ years of robust product management experience, with at least 5 years focused on payments, risk management, and/or marketplace platforms.

• Leadership Skills: 4+ years of people management experience, demonstrating the ability to lead and develop high-performing teams.

• Technical Expertise: Deep subject matter expertise in payment archetypes, technologies, integrations and regulatory landscape required to bring scalable global payment solutions to market.

• Work Ethic: Demonstrated ownership, drive and willingness to exceed expectations. Ability to operate independently. 

• Balanced Skill Set: Ability to balance technical knowledge with commercial insight, conceiving and effectively advocating feasible solutions that significantly impact the business. Balances needs of different customer segments of the marketplace.

• Interpersonal Skills: Strong interpersonal and collaboration skills, capable of influencing a diverse range of stakeholders across the organization.