Senior Product Manager Digital Product

Ford Bank GmbH; Köln; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Ford Bank GmbH in Germany seeks a Senior Product Manager to own the modernization portfolio, moving legacy platforms to cloud-first architectures. You will lead discovery, roadmap, and delivery for core German products across leasing, asset management, and insurance, coordinating with teams in Germany, the UK, India, and Spain.

You will ensure regulatory compliance and drive agile execution while translating strategy into tangible, value-driven increments for fleet operations and dealer

Qualifications

• 5+ years in product management or a comparable software role serving internal business users and partners.
• Experience with at least one legacy replacement or platform modernization that reached production.
• Experience owning a product roadmap and setting priorities independently.
• Ability to translate a leadership-set product strategy into an executable plan.
• Understanding of business requirements and ability to structure them into product logic.
• Experience with financial mechanics such as invoicing, settlement, accounting postings or asset depreciation.

Responsibilities

• Turn strategy into execution: translate complex legacy dependencies, business processes and stakeholder requirements into a clear, high level product roadmap.
• Own the roadmap: maintain a high level, outcome-based product roadmap across legacy dependencies, leasing financial pipelines and dealer insurance requirements.
• Research the Business First Hand: observe and interview users and business stakeholders to understand how current processes, workarounds and pain points really work.
• Structure the requirements: gather, prioritise and elaborate requirements from fleet operations, the insurance department, accounting and the dealer network.
• Deliver incrementally: break complex legacy capabilities into value driven increments, without disruption to daily fleet operations or dealer insurance services.
• Work with engineering and design: lead and collaborate closely with software engineering, design and architecture throughout discovery and delivery.
• Align the stakeholders: coordinate internal and external stakeholders, including compliance, legal and our external insurance partner.
• Build in compliance: ensure European and German financial and insurance regulatory requirements are designed into the new platforms.
• Communicate transparently: keep the business informed on priorities, progress and decisions required.
• Drive Agile Execution: write and prioritise user stories in Jira, and use Confluence, Airtable and Miro to keep the roadmap fully transparent.
• Apply AI pragmatically: use AI tooling together with engineering for legacy code analysis and documentation, verified against the business.

Skills

Product management

Roadmap ownership

Cross-functional collaboration

Agile methodologies

AI tooling usage

German language proficiency

Tools

Jira

Confluence

Airtable

Miro

Job description

As a Senior Product Manager for Germany Modernizations, you will lead the move of the products Ford Bank Germany runs on from legacy platforms onto modern, cloud native foundations, as an empowered product manager accountable for outcomes.

The Opportunity

We are looking for a Senior Product Manager to own the roadmap, discovery and delivery for Ford Bank Germany's modernisation portfolio, and to keep the organisation aligned behind it.

You will own core German products across leasing, vehicle asset management and insurance. Your starting point is our operating lease and asset management products. These are systems the business runs on every day, so the work involves understanding how the business operates as much as it involves technology.

Within our strategy, the decisions are yours: sequencing, scope, what we rebuild, what we retire and what we stop doing. Where reality contradicts the strategy, we expect you to say so and bring the evidence. You will work in cross functional teams located in Germany, UK, India and Spain.

Modernisation at Ford Credit

You will modernise the platforms behind our regional operations, commercial financing and partner integrations. Part of your role will be to take two business-critical systems from legacy environments to secure, cloud-first architectures.

The first is our fleet leasing and vehicle asset management platform, which supports a highly profitable part of our business. You will move its data pipelines, financial subledger accounting and key integrations to the cloud. The second is the core application behind our dealer insurance product, which we run with an external insurance provider for the Ford Bank Germany Insurance Department.

Throughout, you will make sure fleet partners and dealers see no disruption to the services they rely on. It is a chance to apply your product and technology skills to work that is central to Ford Bank Germany’s future.

• Turn strategy into execution: Translate complex legacy dependencies, business processes and stakeholder requirements into a clear, high level product roadmap
• Own the roadmap: Maintain a high level, outcome-based product roadmap across legacy dependencies, leasing financial pipelines and dealer insurance requirements
• Research the Business First Hand: Observe and interview users and business stakeholders to understand how current processes, workarounds and pain points really work
• Structure the requirements: Gather, prioritise and elaborate requirements from fleet operations, the insurance department, accounting and the dealer network
• Deliver incrementally: Break complex legacy capabilities into value driven increments, without disruption to daily fleet operations or dealer insurance services
• Work with engineering and design: Lead and collaborate closely with software engineering, design and architecture throughout discovery and delivery
• Align the stakeholders: Coordinate internal and external stakeholders, including compliance, legal and our external insurance partner
• Build in compliance: Ensure European and German financial and insurance regulatory requirements are designed into the new platforms
• Communicate transparently: Keep the business informed on priorities, progress and decisions required
• Drive Agile Execution: Write and prioritise user stories in Jira, and use Confluence, Airtable and Miro to keep the roadmap fully transparent
• Apply AI pragmatically: Use AI tooling together with engineering for legacy code analysis and documentation, verified against the business.

Essential Criteria

• Product management experience: 5+ years in product management or a comparable role in a software environment, with products serving internal business users and partners
• Legacy modernisation: Experience of at least one legacy replacement or platform modernisation that reached production
• Roadmap ownership: Experience owning a product roadmap and setting priorities independently
• Strategic translation: Ability to work to a product strategy set at leadership level and turn it into an executable plan
• Business requirements: Strong understanding of business requirements and the ability to structure them into product logic
• Financial product literacy: Experience with products involving financial mechanics such as invoicing, settlement, accounting postings or asset depreciation
• Cross functional collaboration: Experience working with development teams and interdisciplinary stakeholders
• User contact: Regular, direct contact with users and business stakeholders as an established part of your way of working
• AI in daily work: Practical experience using generative AI tools in your own work
• Way of working: Structured, independent and solution oriented
• Language: Fluent German and good English skills (B2 or above). The business, regulatory and partner context is largely German.

Desirable Criteria - You Are

• Domain expertise: Automotive finance, vehicle leasing, fleet management or insurance operations, ideally alongside a third-party insurance provider
• Regulatory knowledge: European and German financial or insurance regulation, IFRS 16, GDPR
• Methods and certifications: Agile methods such as Scrum or Kanban, or PSPO / CSPO certification.

Additional Information

This position is based in Cologne and it is expected the successful candidate will be able to attend the Cologne office for typically 4 days a week and remain flexible on the days they are required to attend the office according to business requirements.

The Company is committed to diversity and equality of opportunity for all and is opposed to any form of less favourable treatment or harassment on the grounds of race, religion or belief, sex, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment or disability

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