Associate II, Product Operations

The Associate II, Product Operations role sits within Payward's Krak team, the consumer‑banking and payments arm of the company that also owns Kraken, NinjaTrader and other fintech platforms. Krak builds card, payments and other financial features that bring crypto into everyday transactions, and the Product Operations function keeps the launch pipeline moving safely by coordinating compliance, risk, vendor and intelligence inputs. Each day you will act as the central hub for cross‑functional dependencies. You'll keep live, product‑specific trackers of open compliance and legal items, triage new features against regulatory requirements, and work with fraud leads to embed risk controls into design. You'll also manage third‑party vendor trackers, run performance review cadences, and produce briefings on vendor roadmaps. In parallel, you'll supply management‑information dashboards that combine fraud, dispute, client‑engagement and commercial KPIs, and surface market or regulatory shifts that could affect the roadmap. The position requires solid experience in product operations, strategy or programme management within a consumer fintech, payments or banking environment, ideally where a card or payments product is involved. You must possess a strong working knowledge of the regulatory and compliance landscape for consumer financial products in at least one region, and have hands‑on experience alongside fraud and risk teams, understanding how fraud controls intersect with product design. Proven ability to juggle multiple concurrent workstreams with different stakeholders, without dropping the ball, is essential, as is a track record of turning complex operational data into clear, actionable MI for product and leadership teams. The role also calls for a structured thinker who can dive into detail while keeping the big picture in view, and a strong communicator who can translate between compliance, risk, engineering and product groups. Nice‑to‑have experience includes working on card‑issuing programmes (scheme rules, chargeback processes, fraud typologies), familiarity with third‑party banking and payments vendors such as BIN sponsors or scheme processors, prior experience in a fast‑scaling consumer fintech or neobank, and exposure to crypto or digital‑asset products. Payward emphasizes a merit‑based, diverse culture and evaluates candidates in line with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. What the role asks for: - Product operations or programme management experience in fintech/payments - Strong knowledge of consumer‑financial regulatory and compliance landscape - Experience with fraud and risk functions, understanding fraud controls in design - Ability to manage multiple concurrent workstreams with varied stakeholders - Turning complex operational data into clear, actionable management information - Structured thinker comfortable with detail and big‑picture view - Strong communicator across compliance, risk, engineering and product - Card‑issuing programme experience (nice to have)