Payments Product Owner

Pay Range: $89,600-$112,00

Remote Eligible: Hybrid

We offer a pay-for-performance compensation program including bonuses for all employees and a competitive benefits package. See https://www.cuofco.org/careers for a high-level overview of our benefits package and bonus offerings.

General Purpose of the Position

The Payment Services Product Owner is a senior individual contributor who owns the lifecycle, technical readiness, vendor governance, and measurable performance of assigned payment products. The role navigates both technical and non-technical environments, transforming product requirements into outstanding end-user experiences that achieve payment roadmap commitments. It leads through expertise, governance, facilitation, and mentorship rather than direct people management, and exercises decision authority within formally delegated product responsibilities; final legal, procurement, budget, contract, architecture, and risk acceptance authorities remain with the authorized functions.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Product Strategy and Roadmap Ownership

Own the strategy and multiyear roadmap for assigned payment products, establishing objectives, target outcomes, capability sequencing, dependencies, and tradeoffs aligned to member and organizational priorities.

Establish and maintain prioritized product backlogs using a transparent process that weighs member and employee feedback, market trends, risk, strategic fit, effort, and expected value.

Develop business cases and investment recommendations addressing member value, costs, benefits, risks, and alternatives, and measure realized benefits after implementation.

Evaluate emerging payment capabilities, including AI, automation, and personalization strategies, and recommend adoption decisions that enhance member interactions and operational efficiency.

Technical Product Ownership

Own product requirements and technical readiness for assigned payment products, including front-end and back-end components, system dependencies, data flows, and controls.

Lead product-side analysis of APIs, batch and real-time file transmissions, middleware, tokenization, digital channel integrations, core system dependencies, and other emerging technologies.

Define and validate requirements, control expectations, acceptance criteria, and test scenarios using recognized software testing standards, practices, methods, and tools.

Govern release readiness for each payment product release, including change impact, test evidence, procedures, training, support readiness, and stabilization; decide or recommend go/no-go within delegated authority.

Lead product-side incident analysis, root cause evaluation, business impact assessment, and corrective action tracking.

Vendor Relationship and Third-Party Governance

Own assigned vendor relationships from due diligence and selection through implementation, performance governance, escalation, renewal recommendation, transition, and exit planning, as delegated by leadership.

Establish vendor governance cadences and scorecards covering service levels, availability, incident performance, roadmap commitments, support responsiveness, corrective actions, and value realization.

Monitor contractual commitments, billing & invoice reviews, and service level performance with internal partners; document deficiencies, partner with leadership on corrective action governance, and track commitments to closure.

Govern alignment between vendor roadmaps and product strategy, and lead renewal readiness and exit planning analysis, including negotiation recommendations.

Project and Program Leadership

Lead complex, cross-functional payment projects and programs from business case and requirements through planning, execution, testing, implementation, stabilization, measurement, and post-implementation review.

Govern product-side scope, milestones, dependencies, risks, decisions, stakeholder alignment, status reporting, and delivery outcomes.

Establish integrated priorities across regulatory deadlines, production risk, strategic initiatives, and capacity, escalating conflicts requiring leadership decisions, and partner with enterprise project managers when assigned while retaining accountability for product decisions, readiness, and outcomes.

Cross-Functional Leadership, Performance, and Risk

Lead cross-functional product governance to align business-line owners and their vendors across Payments, IT, middleware, digital services, Operations, Marketing, Compliance, Risk, and Finance.

Represent assigned payment products in departmental and enterprise forums and deliver recurring executive-ready reporting on roadmap delivery, product and vendor performance, risks, and decisions required.

Define, monitor, and report product performance measures and lead corrective action for material variances in adoption, availability, processing performance, member experience, operational efficiency, control effectiveness, vendor performance, and roadmap delivery.

Own product-side identification, documentation, mitigation tracking, and escalation of operational, technology, implementation, third-party, member, and regulatory risks, partnering with Risk Management, Internal Audit, and IT to translate requirements into controls and procedures.

Provide technical leadership, standards, knowledge transfer, and mentorship to peers and stakeholders without assuming supervisory responsibility, and perform additional duties and responsibilities as assigned.

Decision Authority and Accountability

Prioritizes and sequences assigned product work within approved strategy, funding, capacity, regulatory commitments, and governance parameters; defines or recommends requirements, acceptance criteria, performance targets, and business readiness criteria.

Makes documented business acceptance and escalation decisions within delegated authority; requires issue analysis, action plans, and escalation from assigned vendors and internal workstreams when commitments are at risk.

Recommends investment, renewal, remediation, replacement, or retirement decisions, and is accountable for roadmap delivery, product and vendor performance outcomes, and follow-through on corrective actions.

Requirements

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

Bachelor’s degree (B.A.) from an accredited college or university (preferred), or an equivalent combination of education and Minimum five years of related payment experience at a financial institution or payment facilitator. Minimum three years of product owner/manager and/or equivalent vendor management experience.

Demonstrated experience leading complex, cross-functional payment projects or programs from business case and requirements through implementation, stabilization, and post-implementation review.

Demonstrated experience governing vendor performance, including service levels, roadmap commitments, corrective actions, and escalation.

Experience collaborating with business-line owners, vendors, and stakeholders to integrate payment experiences, and developing business cases, performance measures, and executive-level reporting.

OTHER SKILLS AND ABILITIES:

High degree of knowledge of payment channels with the technical acumen to analyze and resolve issues involving APIs, batch files, tokenization, middleware, and integrations.

Ability to synthesize diverse business, technical, risk, vendor, and financial information to define an optimal path and make informed decisions, including in ambiguous situations.

Ability to lead through influence, facilitate cross-functional governance, negotiate priorities, escalate constructively, and mentor peers without supervisory authority.

Ability to organize and prioritize work, balance competing demands and deadlines, and function autonomously within delegated authority.

Ability to read, analyze, and interpret contracts, service levels, technical procedures, and governmental reg