Overview

As Head of Product at Zai, you will own the vision, planning, and development of Zai’s payments and embedded finance products. You will define and drive the product strategy that translates Zai’s ambitious growth goals into a compelling roadmap, while leading and inspiring a high-performing team of Product Managers.

The ideal candidate combines deep product instincts with strong commercial acumen and outstanding leadership. You are equally comfortable shaping long-range strategy as you are getting into the details of a user or payment flow, and you use data relentlessly to inform every decision. You understand how to build and ship products in a regulated, scheme-governed environment

Key Responsibilities

Product Strategy & Vision

• Internalise and deeply understand Zai’s vision, product, and market opportunities; translate vision into a product strategy that drives ambitious growth.
• Define future product needs and enhancements with a clear commercial rationale.
• Develop and socialise robust business cases to secure product roadmap sign-off through the Leadership Team (LT).
• Be the voice of product vision internally, obsessing over stakeholder alignment and ensuring all parts of the company are engaged in building a successful product strategy.
• Stay aware of competitors and industry trends in the payments, fintech including emerging schemes, rails and regulatory shifts.

Roadmap & Release Planning

• Own the product roadmap end-to-end, prioritise, sequence, and communicate it effectively across the business.
• Plan releases and partner with the Marketing Director to develop the go-to-market plan for each release.
• Put in place a structured process plan around product delivery to ensure predictable, high-quality launches.
• Work with Technology to ensure adequate infrastructure and support is available for product delivery.

Compliance & Risk (Payments)

• Monitor and interpret scheme compliance mandates (e.g. card network, regulatory, and payment scheme requirements), and ensure these obligations are assessed, prioritised, and incorporated into the product roadmap in a timely manner.
• Partner with Risk, Compliance, and Legal to balance commercial ambition with regulatory obligations.

User Research & Insight

• Continuously analyse user behaviour to guide all product decisions.
• Seek product feedback through user testing, surveys, and qualitative research methods.
• Guide product development using the full product management toolkit, user testing, commercial analysis, design-led and function-led approaches.

Execution & Delivery

• Define and implement the product development strategy and associated delivery processes.
• Develop functional specifications, including wireframes, and communicate them clearly to internal and external stakeholders.
• Leverage assets and resources to drive meaningful product growth through both innovation and iteration.
• Partner with the SLT and other stakeholders to define and embed the processes and ways of working that constitute the product development lifecycle.
• Create, define, and prioritise business cases for large product development projects.

Analytics & Performance

• Define relevant KPIs and reporting mechanisms to determine success across all products and initiatives
• Measure everything; make accurate, data-informed decisions consistently.
• Conduct commercial and behavioural analysis to identify growth opportunities and prioritise the highest-impact improvements.

Team Leadership

• Motivate, manage, coach, and develop a team of Product Managers.
• Identify and recruit any additional hires required for the product team to achieve business goals.
• Foster a culture of ownership, experimentation, and continuous improvement within the product function.

Skills & Experience

Essential

• 5+ years’ experience leading and managing high-performance product teams.
• Proven track record of managing and developing major products within a high-growth business, with demonstrable improvement in product quality and outcomes.
• Experience in fintech, payments, SaaS, or a similarly regulated, fast-moving industry
• Excellent track record designing and engaging others on product vision and strategy, technical approach, and architectural decisions.
• Strong leadership skills combined with strong interpersonal, influencing, and communication abilities, a leader who is also a genuine team player.
• Proven track record managing large-scale web products from conception through to delivery.
• Excellent understanding of using data analysis and user behaviour insights to drive product improvement.
• Structured and dynamic approach to product development and delivery.
• Qualified to minimum degree level.

Desirable

• Direct experience in payment schemes, card networks, or regulatory/compliance driven product requirements.
• Familiarity with modern UX/UI design principles and tools (e.g. Figma).
• Experience working in an agile environment with cross-functional delivery teams.
• Demonstrated success building out product teams and establishing product practices from the ground up.
• Exposure to A/B testing, feature flagging, and experimentation frameworks.

What Success Looks Like

• Zai has a clear, well-communicated product roadmap that is aligned to company strategy and trusted by the business.
• Product releases are delivered on time, with measurable impact on engagement, retention, and revenue.
• Scheme and regulatory obligations are met proactively and built into the roadmap
• The product team is high-performing, motivated, and growing in capability.
• Product decisions are consistently grounded in data, user insight, and commercial evidence.
• Stakeholders across the business are actively engaged in the product process and feel heard.
• The product function is recognised as a strategic driver of Zai’s growth.
• KPIs and success metrics are defined, tracked, and regularly reviewed for every product initiative.

Why Join Zai

• Opportunity to shape the product direction of a high-growth fintech at a pivotal stage.
• High-impact leadership role with direct influence over company strategy and culture.
• Collaborative, ambitious team passionate about building products that genuinely help customers.
• Autonomy to build and grow your team, your way.

Perks?

• 💰 Competitive salary package and benefits
• 🏠 Flexible hybrid working options (3 days WFH)
• 🏝️ 5 weeks of annual leave as standard
• 👶🏼 12 weeks paid parental leave (4 weeks for secondary carers)
• 🏠 One-off working from home allowance
• 💰 Salary sacrificing options
• 🚗 Novated leasing options
• 🌱 Work remotely from anywhere in the world for 4 weeks every year
• 🧠 An innovative, inclusive, and collaborative team culture
• 💼 A beautiful CBD office with perks near Parliament Station
• 🤸‍♂️ A flexible, fun work environment where you’ll learn every day

Equal Opportunity at Zai

Zai is an equal opportunity employer committed to building an inclusive workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without bias to education, race, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, or age. If you need specific assistance or adjustments during the application process, please let us know, we’re here to help.