Senior Product Manager, CPN Payments Engine

Circle (NYSE: CRCL) is one of the world's leading internet financial platform companies, building the foundation of a more open, global economy through digital assets, payment applications, and programmable blockchain infrastructure. Circle's platform includes the world's largest regulated stablecoin network anchored by USDC, Circle Payments Network for global money movement, and Arc, an enterprise-grade blockchain designed to become the Economic OS for the internet. Enterprises, financial institutions, and developers use Circle to power trusted, internet-scale financial innovation. Learn more at circle.com .
What you'll be part of:
Circle is committed to visibility and stability in everything we do. As we grow as an organization, we're expanding into some of the world's strongest jurisdictions. Speed and efficiency are motivators for our success and our employees live by our company values : High Integrity, Future Forward, Multistakeholder, Mindful, and Driven by Excellence. We have built a flexible work environment where new ideas are encouraged and everyone is a stakeholder.
What you'll be responsible for:

• You will own the product strategy for the CPN Payments Engine - the core infrastructure that powers payment creation, routing, settlement, and lifecycle management across the network.
• You'll define the reliability, performance, and capability roadmap that enables OFIs and BFIs to move money at scale, and lead cross-functional execution to turn engine improvements into measurable gains in throughput, latency, and success rates.

What you'll work on:

• Own the Payments Engine roadmap: Define and execute the product roadmap for payment creation, processing, and settlement. Prioritize features that improve reliability, reduce latency, increase success rates, and unlock new use cases across corridors and rails.
• Drive payment performance: Own key engine health metrics - success rate, latency (TTFT, end-to-end), RFI rate, failure root causes. Identify bottlenecks, partner with Engineering to resolve them, and translate improvements into OFI and BFI outcomes.
• Shape API and protocol capabilities: Define requirements for the OFI Payments API and BFI quoting/settlement protocols. Balance developer experience with compliance requirements and network reliability. Own the spec process from problem to launch.
• Build engine observability and control: Drive investments in payment monitoring, alerting, and operational tooling that give Circle and its partners real-time visibility into payment health and the ability to act on anomalies.
• Partner across the network: Work closely with BFI partners, OFI integrations, Compliance, and Operations to understand where the engine creates friction and remove it - unblocking volume, reducing manual intervention, and improving SLAs.

What you'll bring to Circle:
Core requirements:

• 5+ years in Product Management at a payments, fintech, or financial infrastructure company
• Experience owning platform or infrastructure products - APIs, processing pipelines, settlement systems, or developer-facing capabilities
• Strong analytical skills - comfortable diagnosing payment failures, interpreting latency distributions, and building data-driven cases for prioritization; SQL or equivalent data fluency
• Track record of shipping reliability or performance improvements with measurable impact (e.g., success rate, p99 latency, error rate reduction)
• Experience working cross-functionally with Engineering, Operations, Compliance, and BD/Sales to drive outcomes in ambiguous, fast-moving environments
• Ability to operate at both the strategic level (roadmap, architecture trade-offs, partner SLAs) and the tactical level (debugging a failed payment, unblocking a specific corridor, writing a precise spec)
• Clear, structured communication - can produce decision-ready documents, technical specs, and cross-functional alignment materials

Preferred requirements:

• Experience in payments networks, settlement systems, or financial infrastructure (cross-border payments, correspondent banking, stablecoins, or blockchain-based settlement)
• Familiarity with two-sided network dynamics and how engine reliability affects both supply (BFIs) and demand (OFIs)
• Exposure to compliance-forward products where regulatory requirements shape processing logic (e.g., Travel Rule, sanctions screening, RFIs)
• Experience with API product management in an enterprise or B2B context - versioning, SLAs, developer documentation
• Familiarity with payment lifecycle events, failure taxonomy, and operational tooling for payments monitoring and exception handling

Circle is on a mission to create an inclusive financial future, with transparency at our core. We consider a wide variety of elements when crafting our compensation ranges and total compensation packages.
Starting pay is determined by various factors, including but not limited to: relevant experience, skill set, qualifications, and other business and organizational needs. Please note that compensation ranges may differ for candidates in other locations.
We are an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, or any other protected status required by the laws in the locations where we hire. Additionally, Circle participates in the E-Verify Program in certain locations, as required by law.
Should you require accommodations or assistance in our interview process because of a disability, please reach out to [email protected] for support. We respect your privacy and will connect with you separately from our interview process to accommodate your needs.
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