Group Product Manager, Acceptance Rates

Checkout Ltd; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Checkout.com is seeking a Group Product Manager to lead Intelligent Acceptance, improving merchant profit by increasing acceptance and reducing costs. You will shape AI/ML-powered optimization across the payment lifecycle and lead multiple Product Managers in a hybrid, multi-office setup.

You will work with Engineering, Data Science, Analytics and Design to translate merchant goals into concrete roadmaps, with a bias for measurable value and scalable solutions across the payment lifecycle.

Qualifications

• Deep experience in payment optimization, with knowledge of acquiring, authorization performance, routing and payment economics.
• Track record of setting strategy and delivering outcomes across multiple related products or teams.
• Proven success leading and developing Product Managers.
• Ability to bring clarity and structure to complex, ambiguous problem spaces.
• Strong quantitative judgment and data-driven decision making.
• Credibility with Engineering and Data Science teams on decisioning or optimization.
• Commercial sense to connect technical capabilities to merchant value and sustainable outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Set a multi-year vision for merchant payment optimization.
• Unite the portfolio around a shared strategy, roadmap and product principles.
• Balance acceptance, payment cost and fraud risk at payment and merchant level.
• Define how to measure merchant value across the portfolio.
• Build experimentation and causal measurement into product development.
• Own the portfolio's economics, including investment cases and pricing.
• Collaborate with Commercial, Finance, Product Marketing and Customer Success.
• Lead Product Managers across the optimization suite.
• Align teams around evidence-based priorities and trade-offs.
• Deliver measurable improvements in acceptance and costs with clear fraud guardrails.

Skills

Payment optimization

Strategy development

Leadership of PMs

Quantitative judgment

Experimentation & measurement

Commercial judgment

Stakeholder communication

Job description

Company Description

We’re Checkout.com. You might not know our name, but companies like eBay, Spotify, Klarna, Uber, and Sony do, because we’re behind many of the digital experiences you use every day.

We are where the world checks out, enabling over 10 billion transactions yearly for more than one billion global shoppers. Whether you want to book a holiday, order food, renew a subscription, or check out online, there’s a good chance our tech powers the payments behind the scenes. Our platform helps the most ambitious businesses deliver effortless digital experiences, at scale. If you want to do career-defining work, you’ve come to the right place. We move fast, think globally, and believe great teams are built by hiring exceptional people with conviction, curiosity, and the desire to make an impact. With 20 offices across six continents and London as our HQ, we’re shaping the future of fintech – and we’re just getting started.

The opportunity

Checkout.com helps businesses thrive in the digital economy by making payments work better. Our Payment Performance pillar is building the intelligence that helps merchants get more value from every payment.

We are looking for a Group Product Manager to take Intelligent Acceptance to its next order of magnitude—increasing the scale, breadth and merchant value of the optimizations we make. Your immediate goal will be to improve merchant profit by increasing acceptance and reducing payment costs, using fraud risk to decide when a payment should—or should not—be optimized. Longer term, you will help merchants set their own objectives and constraints, with our products intelligently choosing the best action across the payment lifecycle.

You will shape a suite of AI- and ML-powered products that make smarter optimization decisions across the payment lifecycle—from acceptance and routing to recovery and cost. The suite will continue to evolve, and part of your role will be deciding which products and capabilities should become part of it.

This is a portfolio leadership role. You will lead several Product Managers, work closely with Engineering, Data Science, Analytics and Design, and spend time with some of the world’s most sophisticated merchants to understand their goals, prove value and shape what we build next. We are looking for a systems thinker who can turn competing objectives and fragmented capabilities into a clear strategy that teams can act on.

What you’ll do

Set the direction

• Create and communicate a multi-year vision for merchant payment optimization.

• Bring the portfolio together around a shared strategy, roadmap and set of product principles.

• Decide how we balance acceptance, payment cost and fraud risk at payment and merchant level.

• Identify the next optimization opportunities based on merchant needs, measurable value and strategic fit.

Prove and grow the value

• Define how we measure incremental merchant value across the portfolio.

• Build experimentation and causal measurement into how we develop, launch and improve products.

• Own the portfolio’s product economics, including investment cases, adoption strategy and input into packaging and pricing.

• Partner with Commercial, Finance, Product Marketing and Customer Success to make the value clear to merchants and bring new capabilities to market.

Shape Product and Data Science together

• Co-own the Data Science roadmap and outcome metrics with the Data Science leader.

• Ensure Product chooses the right problems and trade-offs while Data Science owns methods, model quality and scientific rigor.

• Direct investment toward data and model capabilities that create measurable merchant impact.

• Set a high bar for explainability, monitoring and safe rollout in high-volume payment environments.

Lead the team and portfolio

• Lead, coach and develop Product Managers across the optimization suite.

• Give teams clear ownership, goals and decision rights while building a strong shared purpose.

• Create an effective operating model with Engineering, Data Science, Analytics and Design.

• Align teams and senior stakeholders around evidence-based priorities, investment choices and trade-offs.

What success looks like

In your first 12–18 months, you will have:

• United the portfolio behind one vision, metric framework and roadmap.

• Delivered measurable improvements in acceptance and payment cost, with clear fraud guardrails.

• Established a stronger joint operating model across Product, Engineering and Data Science.

• Built a practical path toward merchant-configurable optimization.

• Developed a high-performing team of Product Managers with clear accountability across the suite.

What we’re looking for

Essential

• Deep experience in payment optimization, with strong knowledge of acquiring, authorization performance, routing and payment economics.

• A track record of setting strategy and delivering outcomes across multiple related products or teams.

• Proven success leading and developing Product Managers.

• The ability to bring clarity and structure to complex, ambiguous problem spaces.

• Strong quantitative judgment and experience using experimentation, measurement and financial analysis to make decisions.

• Credibility with Engineering and Data Science teams working on decisioning or optimization products.

• Commercial judgment and the ability to connect technical capabilities to merchant value, adoption and sustainable business outcomes.

• Clear, persuasive communication with merchants, teams and senior executives.

We care more about the scope of the problems you have solved and the outcomes you have delivered than a fixed number of years in a particular title.

Valuable, but not required

• Experience building ML-driven decisioning, routing or personalization products at scale.

• Knowledge of fraud scoring, risk controls and the trade-offs between fraud exposure and payment performance.

• Experience with causal inference, multi-armed bandits or other adaptive optimization approaches.

• Familiarity with card-network economics, interchange, scheme fees, retries and stored-credential payments.

• Experience shaping packaging, pricing or value-based commercial models for technical products.

How we work

This role is based in Amsterdam or London and follows Checkout.com’s hybrid working model. You will report to the Senior Director, Product and work across Product, Technology, Data and Commercial within the Payment Performance pillar.

Additional Information

Bring all of you to work

We create the conditions for high performers to thrive, through real ownership, fewer blockers, and work that makes a difference from day one.

Here, you’ll move fast, take on meaningful challenges, and be recognized for the impact you deliver. It’s a place where ambition gets met with opportunity, and where your growth is in your hands.

We work as one team, and we back each other to succeed. So whatever your background or identity, if you’re ready to grow and make a difference, you’ll be right at home here.

It’s important we set you up for success and make our process as accessible as possible. So let us know in your application, or tell your recruiter directly, if you need anything to make your experience or working environment more comfortable.

Life at Checkout.com

We understand that work is just one part of your life. Our hybrid working model offers flexibility, with three days per week in the office to support collaboration and connection.

Curious about what it’s like to be part of our team? Visit our Careers Page to learn more about our culture, open roles, and what drives us.

For a closer look at daily life at Checkout.com, follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram.