Staff Product Manager - Apply & Checkout Experience

Staff Product Manager - Apply & Checkout Experience

At Koalafi, we believe in a world where no one has to put an important purchase on hold. That's why we're making it easier for more people to pay for big purchases over time.

Retailers across the country rely on us to offer flexible lease-to-own financing to their non-prime consumers, while increasing sales and strengthening customer loyalty. Their 2M+ customers love us because we provide a flexible way for them to make payments and give them an opportunity to improve their credit. Our 200+ Koalafi teammates enjoy inspiring and challenging work that accelerates their careers.

Interested in learning more about how we're transforming the financing experience and joining our team?

About The Role

We're looking for a staff product manager to lead and evolve Koalafi's originations product: the end-to-end apply & checkout experiences that serve as the front door to financing for every customer. This is a high-impact role at the center of Koalafi's strategy to accelerate growth by making it easier, faster, and more intuitive for consumers to finance their purchases across both online and in-store channels.

This role is ideal for a product manager who thrives working at the intersection of strategy, execution, and deep cross-functional collaboration. You'll set the direction for originations by aligning diverse partners, from risk and compliance to marketing and sales, around a cohesive strategy that accelerates growth while maintaining a unified vision.

What You'll Do

Define and drive the originations roadmap

• Lead product vision, strategy, roadmap, and execution for the originations product as an engine for growth
• Develop the product strategy for apply & checkout flows that are reusable across diverse merchant and consumer contexts – such as a consumer's mobile phone to a store owner's point-of-sale system or e-commerce checkout integration

Grow and optimize the originations funnel

• Drive continuous funnel optimization by identifying conversion opportunities using quantitative data and qualitative insights to ship rapid improvements while balancing profitability and compliance
• Grow Koalafi's distribution across channels by partnering with cross-functional teams to design and ship frictionless experiences that work for both merchants and consumers

Shape the product for rapid insight generation and experimentation

• Partner with analytics and engineering to instrument the funnel, generate actionable insights, and run A/B tests to validate hypotheses and measure outcomes
• Mentor other PMs and establish best practices for experimentation and funnel analysis across the broader organization

Champion the customer experience

• Champion the customer, bringing curiosity and empathy to every decision to ensure the application experience meets real customer needs
• Conduct user research and map consumer and merchant journeys to uncover usability gaps and unmet needs

Lead delivery as the embedded product manager for the originations team

• Partner continuously with engineering and design to define the what and the why, translating business opportunities and customer insights into user centric solutions, while empowering the team to determine the how
• Maintain a prioritized backlog with crisp epics and stories, clear acceptance criteria, and measurable outcomes
• Partner with analysts and product marketers to define success metrics, ensure releases are instrumented, review post-launch outcomes, and align go-to-market strategy with top-of-funnel campaigns

About You

• 7+ years of product management experience, with a track record of owning application flows, onboarding funnels, checkout experiences, or other high-volume conversion-critical surfaces
• Growth-minded and highly analytical, with deep experience in funnel optimization, experimentation, and hypothesis-driven development
• Proficient with analytics and experimentation tools
• Strong customer empathy and discovery skills
• Demonstrated judgment in balancing short-term business needs with long-term product health and scalability
• Ability to lead and influence cross-functional teams toward a common goal
• Excellent communicator who brings clarity and builds alignment across diverse stakeholders
• Comfortable operating in ambiguous environments and able to create clarity, structure, and momentum over time
• Location requirement: This position requires regular in-person attendance at one of our two office locations (Richmond, VA or Arlington, VA). Candidates must already be located within a commutable distance to either location, as relocation assistance is not available at this time.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in fintech, lending, embedded finance, or consumer financial services—particularly in originations or application flow domains
• Familiarity with the tradeoffs between conversion optimization and credit risk management in lending contexts
• Experience with both e-commerce and in-store / point-of-sale product experiences
• Familiarity with multi-merchant or platform business models where the application experience must adapt to diverse merchant contexts

Why Choose Koalafi

A career at Koalafi means opportunities to tackle exciting challenges every single day. We take pride in a culture of innovation, trust, and ownership. You'll get outside your comfort zone, build meaningful relationships, and most of all, take charge of projects that ultimately help people get the things they need most.

Benefits

At Koalafi, you will have a direct impact on our products and help shape the company's success. We offer competitive compensation & benefits packages to keep you at your best:

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
• 20 PTO days + 11 paid holidays
• 401(k) retirement with company matching
• Student Loan & Tuition Reimbursement
• Commuter assistance
• Parental leave (maternal + paternal)
• Inclusion and Associate Engagement Programs

Who We Are & What We Value

• We focus on what's most important
• We set clear expectations and deliver
• We embrace challenges to reach our full potential
• We ask, "How can this be better?"
• We move fast together