Sr. Director, PDLC Governance

Early Warning; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 160,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Early Warning seeks an enterprise product owner to drive the Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC) framework across product, technology, risk, compliance, internal audit, and executive teams in a hybrid setup across major U.S. cities. The role focuses on governance, risk alignment, and scalable, audit-ready delivery.

You will lead governance forums, monitor lifecycle health, and ensure execution aligns with business goals and regulatory expectations.

Responsibilities

• Owns PDLC governance, standards, and lifecycle execution.
• Establishes and monitors OKRs and KPIs for lifecycle health.
• Communicates with executives and escalates issues across lines.
• Partners with Product, Technology, Risk, Compliance, Internal Audit, and executives.

Skills

Strategic product ownership

Governance & controls

Executive communication

Stakeholder collaboration

Job description

At Early Warning, we’ve powered and protected the U.S. financial system for over thirty years with cutting-edge solutions like Zelle, Paze, and so much more. As a trusted name in payments, we partner with thousands of institutions to increase access to financial services and protect transactions for hundreds of millions of consumers and small businesses.
Positions located in Scottsdale, San Francisco, Chicago, or New York follow a hybrid work model to allow for a more collaborative working environment.
Candidates responding to this posting must independently possess the eligibility to work in the United States, for any employer, at the date of hire. This position is ineligible for employment Visa sponsorship.

Overall Purpose

Enable strategic direction by serving as the enterprise product owner for the Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC) framework. The role is responsible PDLC strategy, governance, standards, adoption, and ongoing maturity to enable consistent, disciplined execution of company initiatives across product, technology, and business teams. This role oversees prioritized programs and governance activities, embeds risk and control requirements into lifecycle execution, and partners with Product, Technology, Risk, Compliance, Internal Audit, and executive stakeholders to ensure delivery capabilities are scalable, effective, audit-ready, and aligned with business and regulatory expectations.

Essential Functions

• Service Excellence and governance: Provides executive governance and communications to ensure effective resource utilization, prioritization, and lifecycle decision-making. Owns and maintains PDLC standards, procedures, controls, operating models, governance forums, and operational rhythms; continuously evaluates processes and methodologies to improve consistent execution.
• Operational Effectiveness: Establishes and monitors OKRs, KPIs, lifecycle health measures, control effectiveness, risks, issues, and remediation activity. Uses insights to prioritize corrective actions, roadmap improvements, and sustainable resolution of execution or control gaps.
• Strategic Partner: Manages executive communication and escalations across the organization related to PDLC execution and governance. Serves as a senior escalation point for lifecycle interpretation, stage-gate decisions, exceptions, and deviations within delegated authority, and aligns stakeholders across first-, second-, and third-line functions.
• Change