Senior Product Manager (Technical)
Zinnia · Greenwich, CT - Hybrid; Short Hills, NJ - Hybrid · hybrid
WHO WE ARE:
Zinnia is the leading technology platform for accelerating life and annuities growth. With innovative enterprise solutions and data insights, Zinnia simplifies the experience of buying, selling, and administering insurance products. All of which enables more people to protect their financial futures. Our success is driven by a commitment to three core values: be bold, team up, deliver value – and that we do. Zinnia has over $180 billion in assets under administration, serves 100+ carrier clients, 2500 distributors and partners, and over 2 million policyholders.
WHO YOU ARE:
We are hiring a Senior Technical Product Manager for a highly visible, client-facing role. You'll lead the API build and client onboarding and implementation, from technical kickoff through production go-live, and partner with Sales and Pre-Sales to win and launch business.
This is a high-impact role for a hands-on product manager. You'll define and own the technical requirements, including API design, data models, event-driven integrations, and traffic management policies such as rate limiting and throttling. You'll bring the technical depth to shape architecture decisions with specificity, not just business cases. When integrations break, you'll dive deep with engineering to find the root cause and drive the fix.
You'll serve as the technical voice our clients can trust. You'll lead integration design sessions with client architects and technology leaders, turn their requirements into plans your engineering teams can execute, and see those plans through production. You'll write concisely and present complex technical topics with equal clarity to engineers and senior executives.
WHAT YOU'LL DO:
- Write clear, testable product requirements, API specifications (OpenAPI), and acceptance criteria. Drive the SDLC across design, build, test, release, and post-release validation.
- Own and execute client onboarding and implementation end to end, from technical kickoff and integration design through UAT, production readiness, and go-live.
- Serve as the senior technical subject matter expert and point of contact for client engineering, architecture, and security teams. Lead integration design sessions and translate client needs into executable plans.
- Partner with Sales and Pre-Sales as the technical lead on API-led opportunities, including discovery, solution design, live demos, and RFP and security questionnaire responses.
- Partner with architects and engineering leads on platform architecture, service boundaries, and scalability trade-offs. Define and review data models and canonical schemas across APIs, events, and persistence layers.
- Define requirements for event-driven integrations, including Kafka topic and event schema design and webhook payloads, retries, and signing.
- Define API traffic management and access policies, including rate limiting, throttling, quotas, IP whitelisting, and OAuth 2.0 and API key provisioning.
- Own requirements for reference data structures, the reference data engine (RDE), and integrations with document management systems.
- Dive deep with engineering on production issues and client escalations to identify root cause, drive resolution, and keep clients informed.
- Drive execution across large, geographically distributed engineering and QA teams. Establish mechanisms such as release readiness reviews and go/no-go gates, and report on release predictability, quality, and SLA adherence.
- Build a repeatable onboarding playbook and continuously reduce time to go-live by turning recurring integration friction into product requirements and documentation.
- Bring structured client and field feedback to product leadership to inform roadmap priorities.
WHAT YOU'LL NEED:
- 8+ years of technical product management, solutions architecture, or technical implementation experience, including 4+ years on API or platform products
- Experience writing detailed product requirements and owning the SDLC end to end for enterprise APIs
- Experience in a client-facing role leading enterprise onboarding and implementations from kickoff through production go-live
- Experience with REST API design, OpenAPI, OAuth 2.0, API gateways, rate limiting, throttling, and IP whitelisting
- Experience with software architecture and data modeling for distributed systems
- Experience with relational and NoSQL databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server, MongoDB, DynamoDB), including writing SQL
- Experience with event-driven architectures including Kafka and webhooks
- Experience with reference data structures and document management systems
- Experience driving execution with large, geographically distributed engineering teams
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
BONUS POINTS:
- Experience in life insurance, annuities, or financial services
- Familiarity with insurance data standards such as ACORD
- Experience with API gateways and developer portals (e.g., Kong, Apigee, AWS API Gateway) and observability tools (e.g., Datadog)
- Experience with schema registries, Avro or JSON Schema, and change data capture (CDC)
- Experience with AWS-based architectures
- Prior hands-on software engineering or architecture experience
- Ability to write concisely and present complex technical topics to both engineers and senior executives
WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU?
Zinnia offers excellent career progression and competitive compensation with the goal of retaining and growing talented team members. The salary range for this role is a good faith estimate, it is estimated based on what a successful candidate might be paid in certain Company locations. The salary range for this position is $115,000.00-$155,000. All offers presented to candidates are carefully reviewed to ensure fair, equitable pay by offering competitive salaries that align with the individual’s skills, education, experience, training, and geographic location. The range may vary above or below the stated amounts. We offer great benefits, including health/dental insurance, parental leave,401(k), incentive/bonus opportunity, tuition reimbursement, and so much more. We’re looking for the best and brightest innovators in the industry to join our team. At Zinnia, you collaborate with smart, creative professionals who are dedicated to delivering cutting-edge technologies, deeper data insights, and enhanced services to transform how insurance is done. Visit our website at www.zinnia.com for more information. Apply by completing the online application on the careers section of our website. We are an Equal Opportunity employer committed to a diverse workforce. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability.
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