Associate Product Manager, Digital Assets

VanEck; New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

VanEck in New York seeks an Associate Product Manager for Digital Assets to drive tokenized product launches from concept to go-live, coordinating across legal, compliance, operations, marketing, and technology.

The ideal candidate balances traditional asset management with onchain finance, spanning fund structures, transfer agents, custodians, and wallet-level considerations. The role is fast-paced and requires strong coordination and data-driven decisions.

Qualifications

• 3 to 6 years of total experience in both traditional finance and blockchain/onchain finance.
• Understanding of investment fund structures, transfers, custodians, and regulatory workflows.
• Hands-on knowledge of DeFi protocols and smart contracts.
• Experience coordinating complex, multi-stakeholder workstreams.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end coordination of tokenized product launches from scoping to live distribution.
• Maintain roadmaps and launch timelines across multiple concurrent initiatives.
• Draft requirements with legal, compliance, operations, and tech teams.
• Coordinate with transfer agents, custodians, and tokenization providers.
• Identify blockers and propose practical solutions.
• Support live product operations and monitor on-chain activity.
• Assess DeFi integration opportunities and prioritize based on needs.
• Conduct due diligence on ecosystem partnerships and compliance.
• Maintain documentation on fund structures and on-chain mechanics.
• Act as day-to-day coordinator across functions for active initiatives.

Skills

Cross-functional coordination

Written and verbal communication

Dual-domain experience

Project management

Job description

Job Title

Associate Product Manager, Digital Assets

Department

Product Management

Location

New York, NY

About The Role

VanEck is actively launching and managing a growing portfolio of tokenized financial products. The pipeline spans tokenized funds, onchain distribution partnerships, DeFi protocol integrations, and co-developed products with ecosystem partners. The team is small and the pace is fast. Everyone executes.

This role exists because the volume of concurrent product work has exceeded what a lean team can manage without dedicated support. The right candidate will help drive new product launches from concept through go-live, coordinate across legal, compliance, operations, marketing, and technology, and keep complex workstreams moving in parallel. They will spend as much time in spreadsheets and cross-functional meetings as they will thinking about product strategy.

What makes this role unusual is the requirement to operate fluently in two worlds: traditional asset management, with its fund structures, transfer agents, custodians, regulatory filings, and compliance workflows, and onchain finance, with its smart contract logic, DeFi protocol mechanics, token distribution infrastructure, and wallet-level product considerations. Candidates who have only lived in one of these worlds will struggle in the other. The ideal candidate has worked in both.

Core Responsibilities

Product Launch Execution

• Own the end-to-end coordination of new tokenized product launches, from initial scoping through live distribution, including workstream tracking, stakeholder alignment, and issue resolution.


• Maintain and update product roadmaps, launch timelines, and status trackers across a portfolio of concurrent initiatives spanning tokenized funds, ecosystem partnerships, and DeFi integrations.


• Draft and manage product requirements, working with legal, compliance, operations, and technology teams to translate business objectives into executable specifications.


• Coordinate with transfer agents, custodians, and tokenization infrastructure providers to ensure operational readiness ahead of each launch.


• Identify blockers early, escape appropriately, and propose solutions rather than just surfacing problems.

Onchain Product Operations

• Support the operational management of live tokenized products, including monitoring onchain activity, coordinating with infrastructure partners on technical issues, and tracking product performance metrics.


• Evaluate new DeFi protocol integration opportunities: assess technical requirements, understand governance processes, and develop internal recommendations on prioritization.


• Contribute to due diligence on new ecosystem partnerships, including reviewing integration requirements, assessing operational feasibility, and flagging compliance considerations.


• Maintain product documentation covering fund structures, distribution mechanisms, onchain mechanics, and partner integration details.

Cross-Functional Coordination

• Serve as the day-to-day coordination point between product, legal, compliance, marketing, operations, and technology on active initiatives.


• Prepare internal materials for leadership reviews, board presentations, and partner meetings, including status updates, product memos, and briefing documents.


• Support the sales and business development team with product knowledge, partner onboarding materials, and technical explanations of product structures.


• Track the competitive landscape across tokenized securities, onchain funds, and real-world asset distribution, and surface relevant developments to the broader team.

Required Qualifications

• 3 to 6 years of total experience, with meaningful time spent in both traditional finance and blockchain or onchain finance. These do not need to be sequential; overlapping experience in a role that bridged both worlds is also valued.


• Demonstrated understanding of investment fund structures, including how funds are created, regulated, distributed, and administered. Familiarity with transfer agents, custodians, and fund operational workflows.


• Hands-on understanding of onchain finance: how DeFi protocols work, what smart contract-based products look like in practice, how tokens are issued and distributed, and how onchain infrastructure differs from traditional financial plumbing.


• Experience coordinating complex, multi-stakeholder workstreams with competing timelines. This is a high-coordination role; organizational rigor matters as much as subject matter knowledge.


• Clear written and verbal communication. A significant portion of this role involves preparing documents for internal and ex