VP, IT Product Specialist

Job Level: Vice President Job Function: Technical Product Management Location: Employment Type: Full Time Requisition ID: 7254 SMBC Group is a top-tier global financial group. Headquartered in Tokyo and with a 400-year history, SMBC Group offers a diverse range of financial services, including banking, leasing, securities, credit cards, and consumer finance. The Group has more than 130 offices and 80,000 employees worldwide in nearly 40 countries. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. (SMFG) is the holding company of SMBC Group, which is one of the three largest banking groups in Japan. SMFG’s shares trade on the Tokyo, Nagoya, and New York (NYSE: SMFG) stock exchanges. In the Americas, SMBC Group has a presence in the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru. Backed by the capital strength of SMBC Group and the value of its relationships in Asia, the Group offers a range of commercial and investment banking services to its corporate, institutional, and municipal clients. It connects a diverse client base to local markets and the organization’s extensive global network. The Group’s operating companies in the Americas include Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBC), SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc., SMBC Capital Markets, Inc., SMBC MANUBANK, JRI America, Inc., SMBC Leasing and Finance, Inc., Banco Sumitomo Mitsui Brasileiro S.A., and Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing Co., Ltd. JOB SUMMARY The IT Product Specialist (Vice President) serves as the subject matter expert for assigned technology products, translating product knowledge and customer insights into actionable guidance that shapes product strategy, backlog prioritization, and delivery outcomes. This role drives measurable product performance by defining and tracking KPIs, benchmarking against competitor offerings, and ensuring user “pain points” are captured through research, interviews, and surveys and reflected in requirements and roadmap decisions. You will support the design and development of compliance and surveillance solutions, collaborating closely with Databricks engineers, Actimize specialists, and external vendors. This role requires strong hands-on experience with the Actimize platform, Star Compliance, including a deep understanding of its tools, configurations, and underlying technologies, as well as a solid understanding of data structures, data pipelines, and analytical concepts. The position is critical to supporting and enhancing the bank’s compliance technology program, ensuring solutions align with risk management, legal, and regulatory requirements PRINCIPAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES Build and maintain deep expertise in assigned products, including features, functions, use cases, customer stories, and client journeys. Create and maintain product documentation to enable user training and a knowledge base. Conduct research and analysis on product performance, market trends, competitor offerings, and customer needs. Collect and synthesize customer feedback through surveys and interviews to identify needs and pain points. Define KPIs to evaluate product performance and benchmark outcomes. Participate in Risk assessment, Security assessments etc. as part of vendor/product onboarding. Track major bugs and feature requests and translate them into clear business and technical requirements for engineering team/vendor teams. Coordinate across teams to ensure bugs and feature requests are tracked, prioritized, and addressed efficiently. Collaborate with compliance and different stakeholders of the project to create and prioritize the development pipeline, ensuring focus on highest-impact items for customer needs. Support UAT and test design by creating customer journeys and user stories to guide testing processes. Advise on the impact of testing exceptions and the likelihood and customer impact of specific defects. Partner across business units and customer-facing teams to build shared understanding of customer needs and incorporate insights into product and business strategy. Build and maintain relationships with clients and external stakeholders to gather high-quality feedback on experience, preferences, needs, and objectives. Communicate and present effectively to advocate for the client perspective in planning and strategy sessions. POSITION SPECIFICATIONS Recommended experience: 5+ years in product-focused IT roles supporting product development, delivery, or product operations. Familiarity with surveillance and corporate compliance systems. Demonstrated ability to act as a product subject matter expert and influence prioritization. Product discovery and insight: Research and Analysis, pain-point identification, configuration and admin settings. Analytics and measurement: KPI definition, performance evaluation, benchmarking, data analysis to support decisions. Requirements and backlog execution: Capturing bugs and feature requests; converting into business and technical requirements; supporting prioritization and roadmap discussions. Quality partnership: User stories to guide testing; defect impact assessment. Cross-functional influence: Ability to align Product, Engineering, QA, and compliance teams; strong communication and presentation skills to advocate for client perspective. DevOps, Automation, Troubleshooting/Problem Solving, Software Testing, Project Management, IT Infrastructure, Domain Knowledge, Strategic Planning, Data Analysis, Requirements Management, Cyber Security. Works primarily through influence across Product Management, Engineering, QA, and business stakeholders.Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field preferred. Core Technologies: Python, Power BI, Power Apps, Oracle/PL-SQL, SQL stored procedures, Actimize (preferred) Additional Requirements SMBC’s employees participate in a Hybrid workforce model that provides employees with an opportunity to work from home, as well as, from an SMBC office. SMBC requires that employees live within a reasonable commuting distance of their office location. Prospective candidates will learn more about their specific hybrid work schedule during their interview process. Hybrid work may not be permitted for certain roles, including, for example, certain FINRA-registered roles for which in-office attendance for the entire workweek is required. SMBC provides reasonable accommodations during candidacy for applicants with disabilities consistent with applicable federal, state, and local law. If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application process, please let us know at [email protected]. Nearest Major Market: Charlotte