Finance Product Lead

About Tern: Tern is a premier, venture-backed software technology innovator on a mission to completely reshape the $127 billion global travel agency industry by returning operational control to the small business entrepreneurs who built it. Noting that nearly 98% of travel agencies operate as independent small businesses, Tern engineers the modern cloud infrastructure, transactional workflows, and financial systems required to run efficient, professional, and highly profitable operations. Backed by institutional venture funds, Tern replaces decades-old legacy accounting software, allowing modern travel advisors to manage multi-tiered client accounts cleanly while promoting intentional, sustainable local tourism choices across the globe.

Position Overview

We are seeking an entrepreneurial, deeply technical Finance Product Lead to spearhead the architecture, development, and scaling of Tern’s core financial infrastructure. In this high-leverage product management seat, you will own the entire financial system of record, moving far beyond superficial third-party widgets to engineer a robust, ground-up payments and compliance platform. Initially shadowing our Head of Product to transition active payout workstreams, you will ultimately claim absolute strategic ownership over virtual cards, automated payroll integrations, international multi-currency processing rails, and enterprise ledger layers. This role demands a seasoned fintech builder who can have peer-level architectural conversations with backend developers, compile precise product specifications, and direct customer research loops independently within a lean workspace.

Key Responsibilities

• Financial Infrastructure Roadmap Ownership: Design, establish, and execute the multi-quarter product roadmap for Tern’s financial software layers, integrating corporate virtual card issuing, B2B payroll setups, and expense management controls.
• General Ledger (GL) Layer Engineering: Architect and ship the core general ledger system, governing automated client invoicing modules, transaction history logs, monthly close parameters, and automated file exports.
• High-Risk Compliance and Risk Mitigation: Formulate the operational compliance foundations and underwriting logic needed to safely clear credit authorizations and premium service fee collections inside the high-risk travel payments landscape.
• Hierarchical Subscription Billing: Deploy scalable membership fee engines built specifically to manage sub-agency agent commission splittings under complex host hierarchy trees.
• Enterprise Reconciliation Scaling: Partner alongside our dedicated Agency engineering squad to extend existing transaction tracking structures into scalable enterprise host workflows.
• Developer Unblocking & Specifications: Maintain daily execution speed by writing clear technical requirements, mapping data dependency diagrams, and directly clearing structural obstacles for frontend and backend engineers.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• Meaningful, demonstrated professional history operating as a founding or near-founding Product Manager within a scale-stage fintech startup, owning an entire payments stack end-to-end.
• Deep, authoritative functional knowledge of general ledger architectures, international payment rails, risk rules, and electronic compliance structures.
• Proven background steering a B2B payments product through a significant inflection loop, managing rapid multi-X transactional volume growth or complex multi-jurisdictional compliance overhauls.
• Strong quantitative analysis habits, with the capacity to conduct autonomous consumer research and translate ambiguous financial flows into structured engineering specs.
• Outstanding verbal and written communication mechanics, optimized to lead technical debates with software engineers and summarize trade-offs for executive stakeholders.
• Location Context: 100% remote-first full-time operational framework tailored for qualified finance product leaders permanently residing anywhere within the United States.

Preferred Strategic Indicators (Nice to Have)

• Prior product management experience building dedicated enterprise payroll tools or international multi-currency settlement applications.
• Functional background driving system requirements inside heavily regulated, multi-layered marketplaces, gaming lines, or premium healthcare billing networks.
• Track record of successfully scaling a product management department through Series A or Series B institutional financing rounds.

What We Offer

• Premium Compensation Matrix: A highly attractive base salary range of $200,000 – $250,000 USD, complemented by a competitive corporate equity allocation plan.
• The exceptional professional canvas to turn a high-growth travel workspace tool into the absolute financial system of record for a wide-open $1.6 trillion industry vertical.
• Profound work-from-home remote parameters providing excellent lifestyle autonomy and complete geographic independence inside the United States.
• A supportive, low-bureaucracy corporate culture that explicitly values operational excellence, rapid product velocity, continuous learning, and direct accountability without oversized egos.