Job Description
About the Role

We're hiring a Senior Product Manager to own a core product vertical within Unit21's platform. You'll be responsible for the systems that determine what gets flagged, how it gets investigated, and how decisions are made, spanning rule-based detection, AI-driven capabilities, and the workflows that connect them.

Your specific area of ownership will be scoped during the interview process based on your strengths and team needs, but every PM at Unit21 works across the same landscape: complex compliance workflows, high-stakes decisioning systems, and a product philosophy that prizes control, auditability, and trust above all else.

The core challenge is the same regardless of vertical: shrink the gray area. Reduce the noise that wastes human time on false positives without sacrificing the coverage that catches real harm. Every product decision you make has real consequences for real people.

What You Will Be Doing

Own the product vision, strategy, and roadmap for your vertical within Unit21's platform, which may span areas such as detection logic, AI-driven decisioning, risk scoring, alert workflows, or screening capabilities.

Deeply understand how fraud and AML teams actually use these systems today: where the friction is, where coverage gaps exist, and where human time is being wasted on noise.

Translate that understanding into clear, incremental product releases that compound over time into a fundamentally better experience.

Partner with engineering to scope, prototype, and ship rapidly. You'll operate hands-on, especially in early product discovery.

Use AI relentlessly in your own work. We expect you to automate significant portions of your workflow, prototype with tools like Cursor, and bring AI-native thinking to how you approach every problem.

With this particular role, the expectation is to go beyond simply prototyping with AI, to actually building features in the product with AI, from end to end, owning Product, Design, and the ability to Engineer the features yourself.

You will have the autonomy to rethink your domain through the lens of what AI makes newly possible, whether that means detection systems that do the job themselves, workflows that eliminate manual steps entirely, or new product paradigms that remove human bottlenecks rather than simply making them more comfortable.

Continuously gather input from customers, internal teams, and data to refine product direction. Listening is the most important thing you'll do.

Communicate product strategy, tradeoffs, and uncertainty clearly to leadership and cross-functional teams. We value people who stabilize uncertainty without manufacturing certainty.

Balance speed vs. accuracy vs. trust in a regulated, high-risk domain.

What We're Looking For

AI-native operator: You don't just talk about AI. You use it every day. You've automated meaningful parts of your own work, you're comfortable building in tools like Cursor and/or Claude Code, and you instinctively ask "what would this look like if AI could handle it?" for every workflow you encounter.

Builder mentality: You are energized by taking something from zero to one and iterating fast. You prototype, test, and learn quickly. You don't wait for permission, and you act with urgency. You are comfortable with ambiguity, and have insanely high agency.

Systems thinker: You understand complex, workflow-heavy products. You've worked on systems where the logic layer matters, where configurability is a feature, and where getting the abstraction right is the difference between a platform and a one-off. Experience with fraud, AML, compliance, risk, or similar detection/decisioning domains is a plus, not a necessity.

Strong product athlete: Experience building and shipping complex software products. You operate from ambiguity to clarity to execution. Bonus points if you have started a company of your own before.

Technical depth: Comfort working closely with engineers on system design, data flows, APIs, and product architectures. You don't need to code production software, but you think like an engineer when it matters, and you can build on your own when you need to move fast.

Data-driven and evidence-rooted: You use data, experimentation, and metrics to guide direction. You follow your curiosity with data. Self-conviction is a starting point, but you gather evidence before committing.

Curious, not defensive: You question everything but assume positive intent. When challenged, you shift from defensiveness to curiosity. You start from "I don't know" and treat that as a strength.

Clear communicator: You write things down. You build in public. You default to public channels, shared docs, and visible decisions over private conversations and closed-door meetings.

Bonus Points

You have started a company before.

You can't stop talking about your Claude setup.

Background in fintech.

Prior experience as a designer, an engineer, a data analyst, or a technical PM.

Comfort with broad scope and fast context-switching across multiple product areas.

Work Location

SF or Bay Area preferred, with at least one day/week in office. Remote also possible but limited to the following U.S. states: AZ, CA, CO, GA, ID, IL, KS, MD, MA, NH, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TX, UT, VA, WA

Compensation

The base salary range for this role is $180,000-$210,000 annually, depending on experience and location. This range does not include bonuses, equity, or other incentives.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary and pre-IPO equity
• 100% company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees
• Unlimited PTO and generous leave programs
• 401(k)
• Learning & development stipend
• Home office setup support
• A high-ownership, collaborative culture focused on impact, innovation, and growth