Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Kinective is a company focused on transforming banking technology for financial institutions. The Principal Product Manager will serve as a vital link between the company and its clients, ensuring that product strategies align with the operational realities of community banks and credit unions while driving the adoption of innovative solutions.
Responsibilities
- Act as the primary source of FI operational insight — ensuring what we build aligns with how financial institutions actually operate
- Play an ongoing role in Kinective’s client advisory programs, including the Customer Advisory Board (CAB), executive committee sessions, and client working groups, in partnership with Product Marketing leadership
- Validate major solution initiatives with real FI feedback before launch, ensuring the roadmap reflects community bank and credit union needs
- Translate client conversations into actionable insights for product teams and identify gaps between product direction and FI adoption realities
- Build and maintain relationships with FI executives, operations leaders, and technology teams to provide ongoing operational visibility
- Equip Product Strategy and Product Marketing leadership with the FI insight needed for roadmap, positioning, and go-to-market decisions
- Contribute a client-grounded perspective to Kinective’s cross-product platform strategy and connected solution experience
- Surface integration friction, workflow gaps, and multi-product opportunities through direct FI engagement
- Map end-to-end FI workflows — from onboarding to core ledger posting to fraud decisioning — and identify where product handoffs break down
- Serve as connective tissue across product, engineering, and professional services teams to prioritize integration improvements
- Pressure-test roadmap and platform decisions against real-world FI operations, staffing, governance, and compliance realities
- Ensure AI investments align with how FIs can realistically adopt and benefit from them
- Partner with Product Strategy leadership to validate AI-powered solution bundles against FI workflows, constraints, and readiness
- Help FI clients articulate the value of AI-first banking to internal stakeholders and feed those insights back into product strategy
- Identify opportunities created by AI adoption pressure, fragmented data, lean FI teams, and fintech disruption
- Surface market intelligence on AI adoption trends, regulatory developments, and competitive shifts to inform the roadmap
- Bridge client reality and internal execution so product, marketing, and sales teams communicate credibly with FI buyers
- Partner with Product Marketing to ensure messaging reflects outcomes FI executives recognize and value
- Review sales and marketing materials to ensure alignment with real FI decision-making and operational challenges
- Serve as a subject matter resource on complex FI deals, including procurement dynamics and stakeholder navigation
- Align product, engineering, professional services, and GTM teams around client-validated priorities without direct authority
Skills
- VP-level or equivalent experience within a community bank, credit union, or regional financial institution
- Broad exposure across FI operations, technology, lending, retail banking, fraud, or compliance, including experience with core migrations, middleware implementations, or origination system transformations
- Deep understanding of current FI challenges, including data fragmentation, AI adoption pressure, fraud escalation, consolidation, and lean operations
- Existing credibility and relationships within the community FI ecosystem
- No product management experience required — Kinective will teach product practices while you bring FI expertise
- 5+ years of software product management experience within fintech or enterprise SaaS
- Experience managing platform ecosystems, integrations, or API-driven products across fragmented product lines
- Proven ability to create platform coherence where connectivity and data are core value propositions
- Direct, hands-on experience working with community FI clients and earning trust with FI executives
- Strong understanding of how FIs actually make operational and purchasing decisions
- Systems thinking: understand how changes in one module impact broader FI operations and Kinective's platform
- Technical fluency: comfortable discussing APIs, data schemas, and integration architecture while translating technical decisions into business impact
- Influence without authority: able to drive alignment across complex organizations and competing priorities
- Communication clarity: translate FI operational realities into product direction and product capabilities into executive-level outcomes
- Comfort with ambiguity: thrive in a senior IC role where credibility, relationships, and judgment drive impact
Benefits
- 10% annual bonus potential
- Bonuses, commissions, or equity (depending on the role)
- Comprehensive health coverage (medical, dental, vision, prescriptions, life & disability)
- Flexible PTO, 11 company holidays, and generous parental and caregiver leave
- An immediately vested 401(k) with company contributions
- Wellness resources and professional development opportunities
Company Overview