Sr. Director, PDLC Governance

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 management champion: Leads cross-functional change, challenges current ways of working when they limit impact, and builds scalable systems and implementation approaches that improve execution across teams and drive enterprise-wide adoption and maturity of PDLC requirements. Enterprise PDLC ownership: Defines the PDLC product vision, strategy, roadmap, requirements, and prioritized backlog; ensures lifecycle capabilities evolve based on business, risk, regulatory, technology, and user needs. Lifecycle controls and stage gates: Defines and governs stage gates, evidence requirements, stage-exit criteria, and lifecycle controls. Maintains clear accountability for lifecycle execution and drives consistent use of requirements across multiple lines of business. Cross-functional execution: Partners with Product, Program, Engineering, Tooling, and Build Leads to translate business requirements into PDLC capabilities, backlog priorities, process improvements, workflow, and automation while balancing control rigor and product agility. Risk, audit, and regulatory readiness: Partners with Risk, Compliance, Internal Audit, and other oversight functions to align risk and control activities and evidence expectations while maintaining clear first-line accountability. Represents PDLC governance with executive leadership, auditors, regulators, and internal oversight functions as appropriate. Support the company's commitment to risk management and protecting the integrity and confidentiality of systems and data. Minimum Qualifications Education and experience typically obtained through completion of a Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Project Management and/or Computer Science or related field. Typically has 15 years of experience in project/program management, product governance, enterprise transformation, or related leadership, or demonstrated portfolio consistent with experience required of the role. Proven leadership experience managing teams and leading complex, enterprise-wide or cross-functional initiatives through scalable operating practices. Demonstrated P&L experience from both a department and project level. Excellent oral, written, interpersonal, presentation, and analytical skills, with the ability to communicate complex governance, risk, control, and remediation outcomes clearly. Proven experience presenting to and influencing senior and executive stakeholders, including aligning perspectives across Product, Technology, Risk, Compliance, and audit functions. MS 365 (PPT, Word, Excel, Project, etc.) Comprehensive knowledge of Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC) and Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) frameworks, lifecycle governance, and enterprise operating models. Ability to translate business, risk, regulatory, and technology requirements into governance standards, roadmap priorities, capabilities, and process decisions. Strong knowledge of risk and control practices, including governance, control effectiveness, evidence requirements, issue remediation, and audit readiness. Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional change and drive adoption across multiple lines of business through influence, sound judgment, and scalable operating practices. Background and drug screen. Preferred Qualifications Experience with enterprise workflow, project management, and collaboration platforms, including Jira and Confluence, and automation supporting lifecycle governance. Financial services or financial technology environment experience. Agile or Waterfall methodologies experience. Experience leading large-scale PDLC or SDLC transformation, migration, modernization, or lifecycle-governance improvement. Experience designing or modernizing lifecycle governance frameworks in a regulated environment. Experience working across Product and Technology organizations. Physical Requirements Working conditions consist of a normal office environment. Work is primarily sedentary and requires extensive use of a computer and involves sitting for periods of approximately four hours. Work may require occasional standing, walking, kneeling, and reaching. Must be able to lift 10 pounds occasionally and/or negligible amount of force frequently. Requires visual acuity and dexterity to view, prepare, and manipulate documents and office equipment including personal computers. Requires the ability to communicate with internal and/or external customers. Employee must be able to perform essential functions and physical requirements of position with or without reasonable accommodation. Candidates responding to this posting must independently possess the eligibility to work in the United States at the date of hire. The above job description is not intended to be an all-inclusive list of duties and standards of the position. The base pay scale for this position in: New York, NY/ San Francisco, CA in USD per year is: $226,000 - $282,000. Phoenix, AZ/ Chicago, IL in USD per year is: $188,000 - $235,000. Additionally, candidates are eligible for a discretionary incentive plan and benefits. This pay scale is subject to change and is not necessarily reflective of actual compensation that may be earned, nor a promise of any specific pay for any specific candidate, which is always dependent on legitimate factors considered at the time of job offer. Early Warning Services takes into consideration a variety of factors when determining a competitive salary offer, including, but not limited to, the job scope, market rates and geographic location of a position, candidate’s education, experience, training, and specialized skills or certification(s) in relation to the job requirements and compared with internal equity (peers). The business actively supports and reviews wage equity to ensure that pay decisions are not based on gender, race, national origin, or any other protected classes. Some of the Ways We Prioritize Your Health and Happiness Healthcare Coverage – Competitive medical (PPO/HDHP), dental, and vision plans as well as company contributions to your Health Savings Account (HSA) or pre-tax savings through flexible spending accounts (FSA) for commuting, health & dependent care expenses. 401(k) Retirement Plan – Featuring a 100% Company Safe Harbor Match on your first 6% deferral immediately upon eligibility. Paid Time Off – Flexible Time Off for Exempt (salaried) employees, as well as generous PTO for Non-Exempt (hourly) employees, plus 11 paid company holidays and a paid volunteer day. 12 weeks of Paid Parental Leave Maven Family Planning – provides support through your Parenting journey including egg freezing, fertility, adoption, surrogacy, pregnancy, postpartum, early pediatrics, and returning to work. And SO much more! We continue to enhance our program, so be sure to check our Benefits page here for the latest. Our team can share more during the interview process! Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. Early Warning Services, LLC (“Early Warning”) considers for employment, hires, retains and promotes qualified candidates on the basis of ability, potential, and valid qualifications without regard to race, religious creed, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, protected veteran or disability status or any factor prohibited by law, and as such affirms in policy and practice to support and promote equal employment opportunity and affirmative action, in accordance with all applicable federal, state, and municipal laws. The company also prohibits discrimination on other bases such as medical condition, marital status or any other factor that is irrelevant to the performance of our employees.