Lead Product Manager

This Lead Product Manager role at PayPal focuses on optimizing payment processing, specifically enhancing authorization rates. The individual contributor will collaborate with internal technical teams and business units, as well as external card networks, processors, and issuers, to understand customer needs and build best-in-class payment capabilities. Responsibilities include inputting to product strategy, implementing architectural roadmaps, managing workstreams, and monitoring product success metrics.

Must Have

• Input to product strategy with cross-functional stakeholders.
• Implement architectural roadmap balancing design, technical implementation, and regulatory requirements.
• Control for customer experience and needs in product requirements.
• Monitor metrics for product success.
• Manage workstreams including analytics, customer discovery, market research, and competitive analysis.
• Monitor product profitability measures.
• Participate in operational mechanisms.
• Partner with content developers, data scientists, product designers and user experience researchers.
• 5+ years relevant experience.
• Bachelor’s degree.

Good to Have

• Drive authorization rate strategy and roadmap for enterprise customers.
• Own strategic relationships with top customers.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives spanning engineering, data science, risk/fraud, and payment operations.
• Partner with payment processors, networks, and technology vendors.
• Define success metrics and reporting frameworks for authorization performance.
• Evangelize authorization optimization as a revenue driver.
• Strong technical product skills and expertise in card processing.
• 6+ years experience with technology product management.
• MBA a plus.

Perks & Benefits

• Flexible work environment
• Employee shares options
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Medical benefits
• Dental benefits
• Vision benefits

Job Summary:

This job contributes to Payment processing optimization at PayPal.

In this role, you will sit at the intersection of technical teams within PayPal as well as PayPal card processing business units to understand customer needs around best in class authorization rates. The role involves collaborating with multiple internal stakeholders as well as customers to deeply understand, tackle and build Payment capabilities interfacing with card networks, processors and issuers to enhance authorization rates.

This job is an individual contributor.

Job Description:

Essential Responsibilities:

• Inputs to product strategy with cross-functional stakeholders consistent with the shared vision for the product or enabling platform.
• Implements the architectural roadmap that balances innovative design and technical implementation, while balancing regulatory requirements, time-to-market, meeting customer needs and product profitability.
• Controls for the customer experience and customer needs in product requirements and as an input to decision making.
• Monitors metrics that inform the success of products including usability studies, research and market analysis.
• Manages one or more workstreams to include analytics, customer discovery, market research and competitive analysis to drive data-driven decision-making.
• Monitors product profitability measures, including budget.
• Participates in operational mechanisms that drive execution and accountability including Product Reviews, Operating Reviews, and Business Reviews. Interfaces with product and technology leadership as needed.
• Partners with content developers, data scientists, product designers and user experience researchers.

Expected Qualifications:

• 5+ years relevant experience and a Bachelor’s degree OR Any equivalent combination of education and experience.

Additional Responsibilities & Preferred Qualifications:

• Drive authorization rate strategy and roadmap for enterprise customers, identifying and prioritizing initiatives across network tokenization, smart retry logic, 3DS2 optimization, and payment routing to maximize transaction approval rates and revenue recovery
• Own strategic relationships with top customers, conducting deep-dive analyses of their payment performance, decline patterns, and authorization metrics to develop customized optimization plans and drive measurable improvements in approval rates
• Lead cross-functional initiatives spanning engineering, data science, risk/fraud, and payment operations teams to design, build, and launch authorization rate enhancements including ML-powered retry logic, dynamic routing, and exemption frameworks
• Partner with payment processors, networks, and technology vendors to evaluate and implement cutting-edge solutions such as network tokens, account updaters, and adaptive authentication while staying current on industry best practices
• Define success metrics and reporting frameworks for authorization performance, establishing dashboards, KPIs, and business cases that quantify revenue impact and communicate ROI to executive stakeholders and customers
• Evangelize authorization optimization as a revenue driver across the organization, educating internal teams and customers on emerging technologies, regulatory requirements (PSD2/SCA), and strategic opportunities to reduce false declines and involuntary churn

Preferred Qualifications:

• Strong technical product skills and expertise working on card processing in the industry
• 6+ year experience with technology product management
• Bachelors degree in a technical discipline, MBA a plus.