Product Operations Lead

Your Role

We are looking for a technical, operationally sharp, people-driven ProdOps Lead to own the performance and execution of Ascend's Product Operations team. This role will be 50% managing the team running manual ops and 50% driving loan operations automation — serving as the primary escalation point, cadence owner, and people manager. You'll handle ~95% of execution and team decisions independently, freeing up Head of Ops bandwidth to focus on strategic priorities while you drive delivery, metrics, and team development on the ground. You'll need technical experience because in addition to team management you are expected to:

• Build and maintain the loan operations automation roadmap
  
• Own monthly tooling improvements and automations
  
• Own spec delivery and alignment with tech on cross-functional projects
  

Responsibilities will include

Objective #1: In your first 30 days, you will:

• Shadow weekly kickoff and metrics meetings, with the goal of running them independently by Day 30
• Review past cross-functional approach — tooling requests, project briefs, and ops meeting history
• Draft a rollout plan and calendar and ramp up on all health check SOPs
• Own 1 monthly tool automation project

Objective #2: In your first 60 days, you will:

• Run weekly kickoff, metrics meetings, and 1:1s independently
• Deliver first weekly pulse check — covering health check metrics, ticket escalation, project completion rates, and remediation plans
• Draft the hub and process for the monthly ProdOps report
• Own escalations monitoring and on-call ops volume for 50% of team scope

Objective #3: In your first 90 days, and beyond, you will:

• Drive the first full quarterly planning cycle — delivering top 3–5 ProdOps milestones with clear timelines, resource allocation, and cross-functional alignment with tech, product, data, and compliance teams
• Own escalations monitoring and support for 100% of team scope with zero major operational incidents
• Run 1:1s independently and deliver a development plan for each direct report — gaps, strengths, and development priorities
• Propose and document the initial team scope rotation plan and backup coverage protocols

You might be a good fit if you are / have

• 3+ years in operations, program management, or a related role in a high-growth environment
• Hands-on experience building or iterating on internal tools (Retool, Lovable, or similar no-code/low-code platforms) — you've shipped something, not just requested it
• Experience managing small teams with a track record of hitting SLA targets and developing direct reports
• Comfortable owning both execution and process — equally at home running a team meeting and triaging a tooling backlog
• Strong analytical instincts with the ability to build and maintain metrics dashboards that drive decisions
• A bias for direct communication, structured thinking, and proactive problem-solving without needing to be asked
• Background in fintech, insurtech, or financial operations is a plus

Base Salary Range: $130,000-150,000