Product Manager

Job description

**Hello,** We are **Recognise Bank;** a modern business bank built to support the UK’s SMEs with tailored lending and savings solutions. Founded in 2017 by experienced business owners, we set out to challenge traditional banking by offering more flexibility, understanding, and practical support to help businesses thrive. Since receiving our banking licence in 2021, we’ve built a loyal customer base and a strong, diverse team that puts people first. Our vision is **building stronger futures with bespoke financial solutions**. We understand that no two financial needs are the same, which is why we work closely with UK SMEs and individuals to unlock potential others often overlook. Through smart, flexible lending and savings products, we’re here to **build and grow stronger futures for lasting success**. Our values shape how we work and grow together: 💪 **Can do, will do:** We take ownership, solve problems, and adapt as our customers’ needs evolve. ✨ **Be brilliant:** We show up with curiosity and energy, always striving for better. 🤝 **Do the right thing:** We act with integrity, responsibility, and care in everything we do. 💡**Make a difference:** We focus on impact, helping our customers, colleagues, and communities succeed. **About the role** This will be a **fixed term contract for 6 months**. As a Product Manager (FTC - Parental Leave Cover), you will lead a cross-functional squad to discover, design and deliver initiatives to improve customer and broker experiences, increase operational efficiency and deliver faster, better and more transparent lending decisions. Working across Operations, Credit, Commercial, Technology, Risk and Compliance, you will own a portfolio of transformation initiatives that remove friction, automate manual processes and create scalable solutions that support the bank's growth. This role is a fixed-term parental leave cover position responsible for maintaining delivery momentum across the Bank’s lending transformation agenda during the absence of the permanent role holder. ### Key Responsibilities: - Own the delivery roadmap for lending transformation initiatives, ensuring prioritisation aligns with customer outcomes, regulatory requirements and business objectives. - Own the product backlog and prioritisation framework for assigned lending journeys and capabilities. - Define product requirements and acceptance criteria in partnership with business and technology stakeholders. - Act as a product owner for assigned initiatives through delivery and adoption. - Lead the end-to-end discovery, design and delivery of improvements across lending journeys, operational processes and technology platforms - Identify and develop opportunities to improve customer, broker and colleague experiences through customer research, journey analysis and data-driven insights. - Drive process simplification, automation and operational efficiency initiatives that support scalable business growth. - Facilitate cross-functional collaboration across Product, Operations, Credit, Commercial, Technology, Risk and Compliance to deliver agreed outcomes. - Prioritise initiatives based on customer value, business impact, risk considerations and technical feasibility, balancing short-term delivery with long-term strategic goals. - Monitor and optimise the performance of products and change initiatives through KPIs, management information and continuous improvement activities. - Ensure solutions deliver good customer outcomes, comply with regulatory requirements and contribute to a culture of continuous improvement across the organisation. ### Required Qualifications - Demonstrable experience delivering product, process or transformation initiatives within a banking, lending or fintech environment. - Experience leading cross-functional teams to deliver measurable customer and business outcomes. - Experience working with operational, commercial, credit and technology stakeholders to deliver change. - Experience operating within a regulated financial services environment. - Strong understanding of product management, customer journey mapping, prioritisation and delivery practices. - Ability to analyse customer, operational and performance data to identify improvement opportunities. - Knowledge of agile delivery frameworks and associated tooling, ideally Jira and Confluence. - Knowledge of regulatory requirements affecting lending products and customer outcomes. Desirable - Product Management, Agile or Change Management certification. - Experience within specialist property finance, including Bridging, Commercial or Buy-to-Let lending. - Experience within a fast-growth, digital banking or fintech organisation. - Experience working with Mambu, nCino or similar banking platforms. - Experience delivering automation, workflow optimisation or AI-enabled initiatives. - Understanding of UX/UI principles and digital customer experience design. - Knowledge of latest AI tools and trends, including Agentic AI applications and use cases. - Understanding of specialist property lending markets and broker distribution models.