Product Owner – Payments / Money Movement / ACH / Wires

Location: Phoenix, AZ or Sandy, UT — Local/nearby candidates preferred
Experience: 12+ Years

Job Type: Contract

Job Summary

We are seeking an experienced Product Owner with deep Payments and Money Movement expertise to lead products and initiatives involving ACH, Wires, Real-Time Payments, and other U.S. payment rails.

The ideal candidate must have real, hands-on experience building and delivering payment products at U.S. financial institutions (FIs). This is not a purely functional Product Owner role — candidates should understand the architecture, integrations, payment flows, processing models, and technical implementation behind money movement platforms.

Key Responsibilities

• Own product vision, roadmap, requirements, and delivery for payments and money movement capabilities.

• Lead initiatives involving ACH, Wire Transfers, RTP/Faster Payments, and other U.S. payment rails.

• Work closely with Engineering, Architecture, Compliance, Risk, Operations, and business stakeholders.

• Translate business requirements into detailed epics, features, user stories, and acceptance criteria.

• Partner with architects and engineering teams to define scalable payment solutions and integrations.

• Understand end-to-end payment flows including initiation, validation, routing, processing, settlement, reconciliation, exceptions, and returns.

• Drive product decisions based on payment regulations, operational requirements, customer needs, and technical feasibility.

• Participate in architecture and solution discussions and challenge/validate proposed designs.

• Manage product backlog, prioritization, dependencies, risks, and delivery milestones.

• Collaborate with internal and external payment providers, processors, and financial institutions.

• Support modernization and integration of payment platforms and money movement capabilities.

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in Product Management, Product Ownership, Business Analysis, or related roles.

• Strong Payments / Money Movement domain expertise.

• Proven hands-on experience with one or more of:

  • ACH

  • Wire Transfers

  • Real-Time Payments (RTP)

  • FedNow

  • Other U.S. payment rails

• Experience building and launching payment capabilities at U.S. financial institutions is highly preferred.

• Strong understanding of end-to-end payment architecture and processing flows.

• Ability to work effectively with Enterprise/Solution Architects and Engineering teams.

• Experience defining APIs, integrations, payment workflows, and system interactions.

• Strong understanding of payment exceptions, returns, reconciliation, settlement, and operational processes.

• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and product leadership skills.

Must-Have Experience

We are specifically looking for candidates who have "been there, done that."

Candidates should be able to demonstrate:

• Real-world experience building ACH, Wire, RTP, or other money movement rails.

• Experience working directly within or with U.S. financial institutions.

• Practical knowledge of payment architecture, not just business requirements.

• Experience taking a payment product from architecture/design through implementation and production launch.

• Ability to discuss actual payment implementations, challenges, integrations, and architectural decisions during an interview.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with FedACH, Fedwire, RTP, FedNow, or similar payment networks.

• Knowledge of ISO 20022 and payment messaging standards.

• Experience with payment processors, core banking systems, APIs, and third-party payment integrations.

• Experience in banking, fintech, or financial services.

• Experience with Agile/Scrum methodologies and tools such as Jira/Confluence.

Important

Pure Product Owners without hands-on Payments/Money Movement experience will not be considered.

Candidates must have real implementation experience with ACH, Wires, RTP, or comparable U.S. payment rails, along with a strong understanding of the underlying architecture.

Phoenix, AZ or Sandy, UT candidates are strongly preferred.