First Head of Product — AI-Driven Fintech Platform

This role is based in Austin, TX — Backd Payments
· Fintech | B2B Payments & Lending

Who You Are:

Backd Payments is building the future of B2B payments and embedded financing — and we’re looking for a first-principles product leader to help us get there. This is one of the most consequential early hires we will make.

This is not a traditional product leadership role. As our first Head of Product, you will sit at the intersection of strategy and execution — working directly with the founding team to translate a bold vision into a market-leading platform. You will define how we build, what we build, and how fast we build it.

You are joining at an inflection point. The core product exists. The market is validated. Now it’s time to accelerate. You’ll have the authority and ownership to shape the product organization from the ground up, set the culture, and build toward a significant long-term outcome.

If you want to manage a product roadmap inside a large organization, this is not your role. If you want to own one — this is.

• Founder-Minded: You think like an owner. You take full accountability for outcomes, not just outputs. You’re energized by building from nothing.
• Technically Fluent: You can go deep with engineers. You understand systems, trade-offs, and architecture — and you use that fluency to make better decisions.
• Strategic Operator: You connect long-term platform vision with day-to-day execution. You’re equally comfortable in the boardroom and in the backlog.
• AI-Native Builder: You don’t just talk about AI — you use it daily. You prototype, iterate, and ship — not just manage.
• Commercially Sharp: You understand what moves revenue and retention. You design for business outcomes, not just user delight.
• Long-Term Thinker: You’re looking for a role where you can build something meaningful over time — and share in the outcome.

What You Will Do

• Own and evolve the product roadmap — sequencing initiatives that balance near-term commercial impact with long-term platform scalability
• Translate executive and customer insight into clear, testable product bets
• Drive end-to-end delivery: from discovery and definition through to launch and iteration
• Set a high bar for product quality, velocity, and coherence across the platform

Build the Product Function

• Establish product management standards, tooling, rituals, and culture from scratch
• Define how Product collaborates with Engineering, Sales, and Customer Success — and make that collaboration exceptional
• Implement best practices across discovery, delivery, and retrospective cycles
• Build the playbooks that will scale with us as the team grows

Technical Leadership

• Partner deeply with Engineering across frontend UX, backend systems, infrastructure, and third-party integrations
• Bring enough technical depth to challenge assumptions, unblock decisions, and earn engineering’s respect
• Ensure product decisions support a scalable, maintainable, and high-quality architecture
• Own our first critical engineering hire — likely a Senior Engineer or Head of Engineering
• Lead the current engineering team of 3 while shaping the broader organization we’re building toward
• Hire and develop product managers, designers, and technical specialists over time
• Build a culture of accountability, ownership, and craft

Data & Performance

• Define product KPIs, success metrics, and a measurement framework that holds us honest
• Use data — quantitative and qualitative — to drive prioritization decisions and surface opportunities
• Create dashboards and reporting that keep leadership and stakeholders aligned
• Help shape the unification of Backd Payments and Backd Capital into a single, cohesive financial ecosystem
• Think beyond the current product — and help define what a category-defining B2B financial platform looks like

AI-Native Product Development

We believe the next generation of product leaders don’t just manage AI — they build with it. We expect you to actively leverage AI as a force multiplier across your entire workflow.

Specifically, you will be expected to:

• Use tools such as Cursor, Replit, and Claude to accelerate specification, prototyping, and documentation
• Prototype flows, features, and concepts rapidly — without…