Senior/Principal Product Manager

Kiavi is one of the nation’s largest private lenders to residential real estate investors (REIs). We harness the power of data & technology to offer our customers a simpler, more reliable, and faster way to access the capital they need to scale their businesses. 

Formerly known as LendingHome, we’re committed to helping REIs revitalize the approximately $25 trillion worth of aged U.S. housing stock to provide move-in ready homes and rental housing for millions of Americans across the country.

Combining our technology and industry expertise, Kiavi has grown to a team of over 400 and has won many awards over the years including Forbes Fintech 50, Finovate Awards, Best Digital Mortgage Platform, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, and many more. 

• Loans Funded: $22 billion in loans funded 
• Homes financed: 71,000+ projects funded for our customers across the country
• Geography: 31 states + D.C. where we lend to REIs so they can revitalize neighborhoods
• Employees: Over 400 employees with competitive benefits and perks

Location: Hybrid, San Francisco Bay Area with ability to regularly come to downtown San Francisco for meetings, 2 times per week. 

We are embarking on a new initiative to expand our technology and data advantage into new lending areas and customer segments within the fintech space. We are seeking a Senior/Principal Product Manager to lead this endeavor from conception through execution.

Key Responsibilities:

• Product Development & Strategy:
• Develop a strategic roadmap, focusing on leveraging Kiavi’s technology and data advantages to serve customer needs within the fintech lending space.
• Design and independently test Minimum Viable Products (MVPs), leveraging feedback to iterate and improve without the immediate support of a large engineering team.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration:
• Work closely with legal, compliance, risk management, and capital markets teams to ensure all product initiatives adhere to regulatory standards and align with market demands.
• Engage with external consultants to foster innovative approaches and validate product concepts.
• Market Analysis & Opportunities:
• Conduct comprehensive market research to identify trends, customer needs, and competitive products within the lending and fintech landscape, translating findings into actionable strategies.
• View the project as a strategic opportunity to expand the company’s financial service offerings, potentially leading to team growth.
• Stakeholder Communication:
• Present and advocate for product concepts and business cases to internal and external stakeholders.
• Regularly update senior leadership on progress, challenges, and strategic insights.
• Team Leadership & Growth:
• Lead the initiative with the potential for expanding the team, including a new cross-functional team.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Technology, or a related field. An MBA or relevant advanced degree is preferred.
• 5-8+ years of product management experience in the financial services or fintech or lending industry, ideally in a startup or early stage company environment.
• Demonstrated expertise in developing and launching financial products within the lending or fintech sectors.
• Proven track record of successfully launching, rolling out, and executing GTM strategies for new products in FinTech and lending.
• Ability to facilitate discussions and drive to decisions, working with internal teams to define the product offering, develop a case for build vs buy, understand and resolve internal dependencies.
• Strong understanding of regulatory requirements and compliance in the financial services industry.

Preferred Skills & Experiences:

• Proven track record of independently designing and testing MVPs (0->1 products).
• Abilities to prototype and build MVP with low/no-code skills (Examples: Wire up webflow with Zapier/Make + Snowflake/Retool, etc to build a working prototype).
• Experience designing and executing lean MVP experiments (e.g., Fake Door testing, Wizard of Oz prototyping, Concierge MVP) to rapidly validate hypotheses and gather user feedback before significant engineering investment.
• Experience with tooling to help obtain product-relateduser insights at scale (UserTesting, DScout, etc)
• Strong analytical abilities and experience utilizing data analysis or insi