Director of Product Operations

Candescent; United States; On-site; USD 116,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Candescent is looking for a Director of Product Operations to enhance its operational foundations for a high-growth SaaS environment. The role demands strategic leadership to optimize product lifecycle processes, ensuring value delivery in digital banking solutions. Join as a key partner to the Chief Product Officer and help shape the future of banking with innovative product operations.

Benefits

401(k)

Medical insurance

Vision insurance

Paid maternity leave

Disability insurance

Qualifications

• Experience working with regulated financial institutions is highly valued.
• Proven ability to drive cross-functional process alignment.
• Strong understanding of enterprise software development.

Responsibilities

• Define and lead the Product Operations vision.
• Drive planning processes for product development.
• Ensure alignment between product and commercial teams.

Skills

Analytical thinking

Communication

Process alignment

Agile methodologies

Education

8–12+ years in product operations

Experience in SaaS or fintech

Tools

Jira

Confluence

Aha!

Productboard

Job description

Join to apply for the Director of Product Operations role at Candescent

Join to apply for the Director of Product Operations role at Candescent

Candescent is a modern, API-first digital banking platform serving over 1,300 banks and credit unions, reaching more than 30 million users. Recently carved out from the digital NCR Voyix and now backed by Veritas Capital and Canapi Ventures, Candescent delivers cloud-native digital banking solutions across onboarding, money movement, fraud, CRM, and branch experience. Its open, extensible platform powers secure, scalable innovation across consumer and business banking.

About the Role

As the Head of Product Operations, you’ll be a key strategic and operational partner to the Chief Product Officer, responsible for scaling and optimizing the product function in a high-growth SaaS company serving banks and credit unions across the U.S. With a product and technology organization of 1,200 (including ~140 in product), your mandate is to ensure our teams operate with clarity, discipline, and agility across the full product lifecycle. You’ll build the operational foundation that supports our multi-product, multi-channel portfolio and enables consistent delivery of customer value at scale.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and lead the Product Operations vision, aligned with our digital banking strategy and enterprise goals.
• Drive planning processes, including annual product planning, quarterly OKRs, and roadmap alignment across teams and portfolios.
• Ensure a consistent product development framework is adopted across teams and product groups, balancing autonomy with governance.
• Transition program management of the product transformation from consultants and drive the workstreams and activities across the team
• Maintain progress dashboards to provide visibility and transparency to CEO and board

Commercial Enablement & Packaging

• Partner with Sales, Marketing, and Finance to define, operationalize, and manage product packaging and pricing strategies that align with our go-to-market approach.
• Ensure the Sales organization is equipped with the collateral, training, and product positioning materials they need to sell effectively—enabling Product teams to stay focused on building.
• Drive alignment between product and commercial teams by serving as a bridge between strategic intent and field execution.

Data, Insights & Metrics

• Lead the creation of a centralized product analytics practice, delivering insights on product usage, customer value, roadmap progress, and business impact.
• Develop and maintain product health dashboards, enabling teams to make data-informed decisions and track KPIs such as feature adoption, NPS, release frequency, and roadmap delivery.

Process & Tooling

• Own and evolve the systems and tools (e.g., Jira, Aha!, Confluence, Productboard) that support roadmap planning, backlog management, and team collaboration.
• Design and implement best practices for launch readiness, customer feedback integration, and cross-functional alignment.

Chief of Staff Functions

• Act as an extension of the CPO and product leadership team to coordinate key meetings, including town halls, QBRs, offsites, and executive reviews.
• Ensure leadership readiness for strategic meetings by managing agendas, preparing presentation materials, and facilitating follow-through on action items.
• Operate as a trusted advisor and point of leverage for the CPO—ensuring alignment, focus, and operational rhythm across the org.

Governance & Communication

• Run product review forums, executive steering committees, and release retrospectives, ensuring visibility, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Standardize internal product communications and roadmap updates to leadership, sales, customer success, and clients.

Leadership & Team Development

• Build and scale a high-performing Product Operations team that serves as the connective tissue across Product, Engineering, Design, Go-to-Market, and Customer Success.
• Serve as a culture carrier for customer-centricity, operational rigor, and delivery excellence within the product organization.

About You

• 8–12+ years in product operations, product management, or operational leadership within a SaaS or fintech company, ideally serving regulated financial institutions.
• Strong understanding of enterprise software development, Agile/SAFe methodologies, and go-to-market motions in a B2B or B2B2C context.
• Proven ability to drive cross-functional process alignment at scale, across diverse product portfolios and internal stakeholders.
• Analytical and systems thinker with hands-on experience in product analytics and data visualization tools.
• Exceptional communicator who can translate strategy into action, and drive clarity across all levels of the organization.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working with or supporting digital banking platforms, channel solutions, or banking APIs.
• Background in product operations at scale (100+ product team members), particularly in regulated industries.
• Knowledge of U.S. banking technology and compliance environment is a plus.

Why Join Us

You’ll play a pivotal role in shaping the future of digital banking in the U.S., enabling our product teams to move faster, work smarter, and deliver industry-leading solutions to financial institutions of all sizes. This is a rare opportunity to lead operational excellence in a mission-critical function, with executive visibility and lasting impact.

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Executive

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

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Inferred from the description for this job

401(k)

Vision insurance

Medical insurance

Paid maternity leave

Disability insurance

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