About the Role
Sits within a newly acquired startup building an AI-enabled, autonomous banking platform for Tier-1 financial institutions within the banking group. The Product Manager is the single-threaded product owner for the Payments component: vision, roadmap, requirements, prioritization, and measurable outcomes from discovery through production adoption. Requires deep UK or US payments expertise, an engineering foundation, and end-to-end ownership of what we build and why. The first assignment is a live Tier-1 bank payments program with a signed-scope deadline. This is not a program- or delivery-management role: client-program orchestration sits with the Forward Deployed team, and engineering owns architecture and implementation.
Key Responsibilities
Payments Strategy & Roadmap
- Own the direction: Define the multi-year Payments strategy and rolling roadmap across UK and US requirements; decide what to build, defer, simplify, reuse, or deprecate.
- Own the scheme calendar: Productize non-discretionary change - Nacha rules, ISO 20022 deadlines, scheme mandates - before it becomes urgent.
- Keep the roadmap on track and define success: STP, success and return rates, latency, availability, reconciliation breaks, onboarding lead time, adoption.
Payments Domain & Client Leadership
- Be the SME: Serve as the internal product authority on how rails, schemes, participants, processors, settlement models, and operating rules work end to end.
- Problem-solve with clients: Join client working sessions to define what to build - whiteboard the actual payment lifecycle, expose missing controls and edge cases, and identify the minimum viable reusable capability.
- Guard the platform: Convert recurring client and field signal into reusable payment primitives, not client-specific forks; countersign any client commitment that binds the roadmap before it is promised.
- Challenge constructively: Push back on clients and internal experts with evidence; document decisions so they stay made.
Technical Product Definition
- Write the contract: Author PRDs and decision documents; define payment APIs, events, data and state models, error semantics, and acceptance criteria.
- Sweat the semantics: Partner with engineering on idempotency, duplicate handling, retries, ordering, cut-offs and value dates, settlement finality, and recovery.
- Own the boundaries: Define product contracts with Ledger, Customer, Reg & Compliance, Orchestration, Reconciliation, Data, and Command Center.
- Respect the split: This role owns what, why, priority, and acceptance criteria; engineering owns architecture, implementation, and estimates.
Required Experience
Payments Expertise
- Deep, hands-on expertise in UK rails (Faster Payments, Bacs, CHAPS, Open Banking) or US rails (ACH/Nacha, Fedwire, FedNow, RTP, CHIPS); near-term roadmap weights UK depth.
- Working command of ISO 20022, settlement and finality, cut-offs and value dates, returns and reversals, exceptions, reconciliation, and scheme onboarding and certification.
- Practical exposure to more than one payment type (instant, batch/ACH, wire, direct debit, cross-border). Strongly preferred: working knowledge of the other market's rails.
Technical Foundation
- 4+ years owning a technical product or platform end to end, including at least one taken personally through launch, adoption, and iteration.
- Engineering background or equivalent hands-on record: typically 3+ years building, shipping, and operating production software – not coordinating its delivery.
- Fluent in APIs, event-driven and distributed systems, data and state modeling, reliability, security, and observability; reads architecture diagrams without a translator.
Operating Style
- Strong ownership mindset - owns outcomes, not tasks; a product owner who ships, not a requirements librarian. High agency; writes the playbook when none exists.
- Technically credible and commercially grounded - earns trust with senior engineers, bank product and operations leaders, scheme experts, and risk and compliance teams, and executives. Clear writer: turns complex rules into decisions that are hard to misinterpret.
- AI-native - uses analytics, telemetry, and AI-assisted workflows as the default operating mode for discovery, prototyping, documentation, and decisions, not a side experiment.
Impact & Scope
- Direct impact on core banking platforms used by Tier-1 global institutions - starting with a live Tier-1 payments program
- High autonomy and accountability within a small, senior team, paired with a senior engineering lead
- Work shipped directly to production, supporting high-consequence financial transactions
Why This Role
This role offers the autonomy, ownership, and technical depth of a startup, combined with the scale, stability, and long-term impact of FIS. You will define how some of the world's largest banks initiate, move, settle, reconcile, and control money on a next-generation enterprise platform.
Why Join FIS?
Build next-generation payment capabil
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Senior / Staff Product Manager - Payments in City of London employer: FIS
FIS is an exceptional employer located in the vibrant city of London, offering a dynamic work culture that fosters innovation and collaboration. Employees benefit from comprehensive training and development opportunities, ensuring personal and professional growth while working alongside a talented team in the fast-paced financial technology sector. With a commitment to excellence and a supportive environment, FIS empowers its employees to thrive and make a meaningful impact.
