Product Operations Lead

ascend21

San Francisco · United States

Posted Apr 17, 2026

Other
Product

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Job description

What We Do

Insurance is a $10T industry still running on PDFs, email threads, and manual reconciliation. Ascend is changing that. We built the first and only complete financial operations platform purpose-built for insurance — combining AI-powered accounting automation, payments, and premium financing in a single vertically integrated solution. In five years, we've become the market leader: over 4,000 businesses, including more than half of the 50 largest brokers in the country, trust Ascend to bring clarity to complex accounting operations — from collection to close.

How We Do It

Ascend automates the financial operations that insurers, MGAs, and agencies run every day — and embeds directly into the transactions where money actually moves.

AI is driving the cost of software toward zero. The companies that win won't just sell tools — they'll capture value at the point of the transaction itself. Ascend is built for exactly that moment. Our customers don't just adopt software; they unlock measurable efficiency with a proven 5–7x return on investment.

Our 70+ person team, based in San Francisco and Columbus, brings together deep expertise in insurance, fintech, and AI to build infrastructure the industry has never had.

Why We Do It

The insurance industry intermediates trillions of dollars — and almost none of that infrastructure was built for the modern era. Legacy systems aren't just inefficient; they're a ceiling on what the industry can become.

Ascend's mission is to become the leading financial automation platform for insurance by 2030 — powering the financial operations of the entire industry and transforming the way trillions of dollars move. We're not building another point solution. We're building the financial backbone of insurance.

Your Role

We are looking for a technical, operationally sharp, people-driven ProdOps Lead to own the performance and execution of Ascend's Product Operations team. This role will be 50% managing the team running manual ops and 50% driving loan operations automation — serving as the primary escalation point, cadence owner, and people manager. You'll handle ~95% of execution and team decisions independently, freeing up Head of Ops bandwidth to focus on strategic priorities while you drive delivery, metrics, and team development on the ground. You'll need technical experience because in addition to team management you are expected to:

- Build and maintain the loan operations automation roadmap
- Own monthly tooling improvements and automations
- Own spec delivery and alignment with tech on cross-functional projects

Responsibilities will include

Objective #1: In your first 30 days, you will:

Shadow weekly kickoff and metrics meetings, with the goal of running them independently by Day 30
Review past cross-functional approach — tooling requests, project briefs, and ops meeting history
Draft a rollout plan and calendar and ramp up on all health check SOPs
Own 1 monthly tool automation project

Objective #2: In your first 60 days, you will:

Run weekly kickoff, metrics meetings, and 1:1s independently
Deliver first weekly pulse check — covering health check metrics, ticket escalation, project completion rates, and remediation plans
Draft the hub and process for the monthly ProdOps report
Own escalations monitoring and on-call ops volume for 50% of team scope

Objective #3: In your first 90 days, and beyond, you will:

Drive the first full quarterly planning cycle — delivering top 3–5 ProdOps milestones with clear timelines, resource allocation, and cross-functional alignment with tech, product, data, and compliance teams
Own escalations monitoring and support for 100% of team scope with zero major operational incidents
Run 1:1s independently and deliver a development plan for each direct report — gaps, strengths, and development priorities
Propose and document the initial team scope rotation plan and backup coverage protocols

You might be a good fit if you are / have

3+ years in operations, program management, or a related role in a high-growth environment
Hands-on experience building or iterating on internal tools (Retool, Lovable, or similar no-code/low-code platforms) — you've shipped something, not just requested it
Experience managing small teams with a track record of hitting SLA targets and developing direct reports
Comfortable owning both execution and process — equally at home running a team meeting and triaging a tooling backlog
Strong analytical instincts with the ability to build and maintain metrics dashboards that drive decisions
A bias for direct communication, structured thinking, and proactive problem-solving without needing to be asked
Background in fintech, insurtech, or financial operations is a plus

Base Salary Range: $130,000-150,000

Equal Opportunity

We are committed to equal opportunity employment and embrace diversity within our organization. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

We encourage candidates to apply even if their experience doesn't precisely match this opportunity. We value diversity and are dedicated to equal opportunity employment.