Senior Product Manager, Data Platform and Integrity

Senior Product Manager, Data Platform and Integrity at Forward Financing

Forward Financing, a leading financial technology company based in Boston, Massachusetts, is dedicated to empowering small businesses across America by unlocking essential capital. Recognized for its exceptional workplace culture, Forward Financing is actively investing in its team, technology, and customer experience to ensure long-term success. As a rapidly growing fintech, the strategic utilization of data is paramount to achieving its mission.

About the Role

We are seeking a highly technical and collaborative Senior Product Manager, Data Platform and Integrity. This pivotal role will serve as a horizontal leader within our Product organization, partnering across all Product Squads. Your primary objective will be to instill a "Data-First" mindset in the development of our Core Applications (Salesforce, Core Apps, Data Warehouse) and proprietary tools.

You will be instrumental in safeguarding our data model, acting as a crucial bridge between Engineering and Analytics, and serving as a strategic partner to ensure every Product Requirement Document (PRD) incorporates a robust data strategy. This role reports directly to the Vice President of Product.

Key Responsibilities

Product Data Strategy & PRD Governance (Horizontal Partnership)

• Embed Data Strategy: Partner with vertical Product Managers and Engineering leads during the design phase of new features. You will ensure that every Product Requirement Document (PRD) includes a defined data strategy—specifying exactly how data is captured, stored, and validated.
• Design Review: Act as a technical reviewer for major product initiatives, asking critical questions such as: “How does this change the data model? Does this create a duplicate field in core applications? How will we report on this?”
• Standardization: Establish the standards for how our Product team defines data requirements, ensuring consistency in how we track loan lifecycles, customer statuses, and financial transactions across different squads.

Core Application & Salesforce Data Integrity

• Data Modeling: Oversee the logical data model within our Core Applications and Salesforce. You will ensure that as we scale, our schema remains clean, normalized, and efficient, preventing "tech debt" in the form of messy or redundant data fields.
• Lineage & Overrides: Own the logic for Data Lineage and Data Overrides. You will define the rules for which system is the "source of truth" when data conflicts occur and ensure we have an audit trail for manual overrides in core apps.
• Governance at the Source: Implement "Governance by Design" by working with Engineering to build validation rules and constraints directly into the application layer, preventing bad data from ever entering our ecosystem.

Strategic Analytics Alignment

• The Analytics Bridge: Serve as the primary liaison between the Product/Engineering organization and the Analytics/Data Science teams. You will ensure that upstream application changes do not break downstream reporting or AI models.
• Translation: Translate complex analytical requirements (e.g., specific features needed for a risk model) into actionable engineering tickets for the Core Application teams.
• Data Availability: Ensure that the data generated by our products is accessible, documented, and structured in a way that allows the Analytics team to self-serve, reducing the dependency on ad-hoc engineering support.

Why This Role is For You

• Force Multiplier: You will significantly elevate the quality of every feature shipped by the entire Product organization.
• High Visibility: As a horizontal lead, you will collaborate with every Product Manager, Engineering Lead, and Data stakeholder, gaining a comprehensive view of the business architecture.
• Technical Impact: You will be the architect of our "Data Integrity," solving complex problems related to data lineage and synchronization within a high-growth fintech environment.

Role Requirements

• 5+ years of strategic product management experience in FinTech, lending, or a regulated financial services environment.
• 2+ years of direct, dedicated experience establishing or leading a formal Data Governance program, Data Stewardship practices, or Master Data Management (MDM) strategy.
• Expertise in data quality assurance, data lineage, and metadata management, with experience implementing data catalogs or data dictionary tools.
• Solid understanding of lending data lifecycles (e.g., application, servicing, collections) and the compliance requirements (TCPA, FDCPA, etc.) inherent in revenue-based financing or related credit products.
• Demonstrated experience with API integrations and managing complex, high-volume data flows between disparate systems.
• Strong analytical skills with a proven track record of using data and governance principles to define product strategy and measure results.
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field.

Total Rewards & Work Environment

Forward Financing offers a comprehensive total rewards package including medical, dental, vision, commuter benefits, a flexible time-off policy, paid parental leave, 401k match for US employees, wellness reimbursement, volunteering days, an annual professional development budget, and charitable donation match.

As a remote-first company, Forward Financing prioritizes workplace flexibility. While focusing on impact and contributions over physical location, employees are welcome to utilize premiere office locations for in-person collaboration. The company fosters a vibrant culture through virtual and in-person team-building, celebrating wins, and having fun.

Key skills/competency

• Product Management
• Data Governance
• Data Integrity
• FinTech
• Data Modeling
• API Integrations
• Data Quality Assurance
• Salesforce
• Data Lineage
• Analytics Alignment