Position Overview

We are looking for a talented and creative problem solver to join Oportun as a Principal Product Manager for Lending Originations. In this role, you will lead the strategy and development of capabilities that improve the applicant experience, increase new-loan conversion, and support the financial health of Oportun’s members.

This is a key product leadership role requiring a strategic thinker with a strong track record of solving complex problems and delivering meaningful business and customer outcomes. You will articulate the product strategy, establish objectives and key results, define a multi-year roadmap, and lead cross-functional teams in delivering best-in-class lending experiences.

You will work closely with Engineering, Design, Data, Risk, Fraud, Marketing, Operations, Legal, Compliance, and other partners to identify opportunities, align priorities, and drive execution. The ideal candidate thrives in a fast-paced environment and is passionate about building simple, responsible, and accessible financial products.

Responsibilities

Product Vision and Strategy

• Define and communicate a multi-year vision, strategy, and roadmap for Lending Originations.
• Establish objectives, key results, and performance metrics aligned with company priorities and member needs.
• Identify and prioritize opportunities to improve application completion, approval, funding, and new-loan conversion.
• Translate complex customer, business, risk, and operational needs into clear product priorities and scalable solutions.

Customer Insights and Experience

• Maintain a deep understanding of applicant and member needs through user research, data analysis, surveys, experimentation, and feedback loops.
• Develop frictionless lending experiences that improve applicant satisfaction while supporting responsible lending and regulatory requirements.
• Identify opportunities to improve both self-service and agent-assisted originations experiences.

Product Development and Execution

• Scope and lead the development of new Lending Originations products, capabilities, and features.
• Lead high-performing cross-functional teams that include Engineering, Design, Data, Risk, Fraud, Marketing, Operations, Legal, and Compliance.
• Drive products from discovery and validation through launch, measurement, iteration, and scale.
• Anticipate obstacles, manage dependencies, and help teams resolve blockers to deliver meaningful value for members and the business.
• Balance near-term delivery with longer-term platform scalability, reliability, and maintainability.

Experimentation and Business Impact

• Develop and execute experiments across the originations funnel to deliver measurable improvements in application completion, conversion, approval, and funding.
• Define success metrics and use data to evaluate performance, identify insights, and inform product decisions.
• Assess trade-offs across member experience, credit risk, fraud risk, operational efficiency, regulatory requirements, and financial performance.

Stakeholder Leadership and Communication

• Build strong collaboration and alignment across a broad group of cross-functional stakeholders.
• Craft a clear product narrative and communicate priorities, decisions, risks, dependencies, and trade-offs to executive leadership and partner teams.
• Facilitate effective decision-making in an environment with complex constraints and shifting priorities.
• Influence the organization through product expertise, structured thinking, strong judgment, and clear documentation.

Risk and Regulatory Management

• Partner closely with Legal, Compliance, Risk, and Fraud teams to ensure originations products adhere to applicable regulatory requirements, internal policies, and industry best practices.
• Design solutions that balance growth and conversion objectives with responsible lending, risk management, and member protection.
• Support the launch and ongoing management of products operating within complex legal and regulatory frameworks.

Qualifications

Experience

• 12+ years of total professional experience, including 7–10+ years of core product management experience in high-growth environments.
• Demonstrated experience leading complex, high-impact product initiatives from strategy through execution and scale.
• Strong track record of launching and iterating on customer-facing products that delivered measurable business and customer outcomes.
• Experience in financial services, FinTech, lending, digital banking, or another highly regulated industry is strongly preferred.

Customer-Centric Leadership

• Passionate about improving the financial health of Oportun’s members.
• Experienced in creating simple, accessible, and frictionless customer experiences.
• Able to balance customer needs with business, risk, operational, and regulatory considerations.

Analytical Problem Solving

• Demonstrated ability to structure and solve complex, ambiguous problems.
• Strong experience using data to make decisions, define metrics, develop hypotheses, and measure results.
• Experience with experimentation, funnel analysis, product analytics, and performance optimization.

Collaboration and Influence

• Proven ability to build consensus and drive results across a wide range of cross-functional partners.
• Comfortable influencing senior stakeholders without relying on direct authority.
• Able to operate effectively in a fast-paced environment with shifting priorities and competing constraints.

Communication

• Clear, concise, and persuasive written and verbal communicator.
• Strong documentation, storytelling, and executive presentation skills.
• Able to communicate complex product, technical, risk, and business concepts to different audiences.

Execution

• Scrappy, solution-oriented, and accountable for outcomes.
• Able to move fluidly between strategic thinking and detailed execution.
• Skilled at identifying risks, managing dependencies, resolving blockers, and maintaining momentum.

Domain Knowledge

• Prior experience with lending originations, credit products, underwriting, application funnels, or loan decisioning is strongly preferred.
• Experience launching and managing products within complex legal and regulatory frameworks.
• Familiarity with credit risk, fraud, compliance, servicing, or financial-product economics is beneficial.