AVP, Product Manager, Payments

Title: AVP, Product Manager, Payments Location: Fort Lee, New Jersey, United States

Who We Are

Cross River builds the infrastructure behind the world’s most innovative financial products. Our technology and capital solutions power payments, cards, lending, and digital asset capabilities that move money safely, instantly, and inclusively — trusted by leading fintechs, enterprises, and disruptors across the globe.

Our mission is simple: to build the financial infrastructure that expands access and opportunity for all. Guided by a culture of collaboration, curiosity, and purpose, Cross River has been named one of American Banker’s Best Places to Work in Fintech year after year. Whether you’re designing code, solving regulatory puzzles, or developing strategy, you’ll join a team where innovation and integrity drive everything we do — and where your work helps shape the future of finance.

What We're Looking For

We are seeking a Product Manager, Payments (AVP) to own our core US payment rails — ACH, Wire, RTP, and FedNow. You'll be responsible for the strategy and execution that makes these rails faster, more reliable, and easier for our partners to use as we scale.

This role is about working in an ambiguous, fast-moving environment where you'll need to provide context and clarity to engineering, operations, compliance, and business teams. You'll lead by influence, not authority, and your ability to collaborate with engineer, customers and translate complex business needs into clear direction will define your success.

Responsibilities:

• Own the product roadmap for ACH, Wire, RTP, and FedNow
• Balance quantitative inputs / data, and qualitative input from our customers; blend and balance product, design, creative, operational, and engineering perspectives, and be a valued partner to other teams in our company
• Provide context and clarity, and project influence across compliance, operations, engineering, and our leadership team
• Be the voice of the customer internally — spend time with partners to understand their payment flows, then champion their needs across compliance, operations, and engineering
• Drive reliability and scale — diagnose why payments fail, work with engineering to fix root causes, and build operational runbooks so we can support growing volume
• Define how we expose rails through APIs — make decisions on developer experience, consistency across schemes, and how clients monitor and troubleshoot payments
• Decide which new rails or capabilities to prioritize based on partner demand, technical feasibility, and strategic value
• Make calls when requirements conflict — you'll often need to balance speed, compliance, client asks, and engineering constraints without perfect information
• Drive accountability - hold yourself and others accountable in service of great work

Qualifications:

• 3+ years in product management or engineering roles, with experience building payment products or infrastructure
• Deep understanding of US payment rails — ACH, Wire, RTP, or FedNow — and how money moves through these systems
• Technical fluency and effectiveness working with engineers: you can read API specs, understand system architecture, and make technical tradeoffs
• Proven ability to provide clear context and drive focus in dynamic, ambiguous environments with multidisciplinary teams
• Track record of shipping products that balance competing constraints — client needs, compliance requirements, and engineering feasibility
• Comfort working directly with clients to understand their business and translate their needs into product requirements
• Able to diagnose payment failures, trace root causes, and work with engineering to fix them
• Energy and presence that elevates the team around you

#LI-KR1 #LI-Hybrid #LI-Onsite

Salary Range: $180,000.00 - $220,000.00