Product Owner - Merchant Reconciliation

Description

The company is a global consulting firm that applies digital technology and creative thinking to help businesses, mainly financial services and technology clients. Its work spans AI, consulting, digital, cloud and DevOps, data, and software engineering.

Its research labs build solutions such as AI and blockchain tools, data science models, digital underwriting, and mobile-first apps. The firm has operated for over 20 years and employs more than 17,000 people across 58 offices in 22 countries.

This role owns the reconciliation platform for the merchant acquiring business. The goal is to make every card transaction, fee, chargeback, and adjustment match across the card networks, the bank's general ledger, and the funds sent to merchants.

You will work with finance, settlement operations, merchant servicing, and engineering, turning reconciliation problems into stories the teams can build.

Responsibilities

• Manage the merchant reconciliation backlog covering transactions, settlement, funding, fees, and chargebacks.
• Set the matching rules between authorization and clearing records, Visa VSS and Mastercard settlement reports, bank settlement accounts, the general ledger, and merchant funding files.
• Define how breaks are found, grouped, aged, routed, and closed, including match tolerances, auto-match targets, and the manual steps for operations analysts.
• Write requirements that compare the interchange and scheme fees the networks bill with the fees charged to merchants, and flag transactions that were downgraded or misqualified.
• Define how chargebacks, representments, reversals, and merchant adjustments reconcile against the merchant ledger and reserve balances.
• Write requirements for receiving, checking, and processing settlement, funding, and reconciliation files from networks, processors, and partner banks.
• Work with finance on general ledger mapping, month-end close, suspense and clearing balances, and SOX controls.
• Specify reports and dashboards for match rates, open breaks by age and value, unreconciled funds, and month-end status.
• Serve as the merchant acquiring expert for engineering, covering authorization, clearing, settlement, interchange, merchant pricing, and funding timelines (same-day, T+1, T+2).
• Make sure merchant statements tie to merchant deposits, and support servicing teams with reconciliation-related merchant questions.
• Review how card network mandates and new products, such as new payment methods, faster funding, and new pricing plans, affect reconciliation before launch.
• Act as Product Owner on an Agile Release Train under SAFe: write and split features into stories, run backlog refinement, and join PI Planning, system demos, and Inspect and Adapt.
• Work with the Product Manager and other Product Owners on the train to manage cross-team dependencies.
• Run sprint planning and sprint reviews, and accept or reject finished stories against their acceptance criteria.
• Give finance, settlement operations, merchant servicing, risk, and audit regular updates on scope, dates, and trade-offs, and raise slips early with options.
• Explain reconciliation logic to finance users in plain language, and translate finance needs into technical terms for engineers.
• Lead requirement workshops and UAT sessions, and support production releases, including defect triage after go-live.

Requirements

• 7+ years in merchant acquiring or payment processing, with at least 3 years as a Product Owner or Business Analyst on reconciliation, settlement, or finance systems.
• Solid understanding of the merchant transaction lifecycle from authorization to merchant funding, plus interchange, merchant pricing, chargebacks, and merchant adjustments.
• Hands-on experience with matching rules, break management, general ledger postings, and settlement and funding files.
• Working knowledge of Visa and Mastercard clearing and settlement reports.
• 2+ years working in a SAFe environment, including PI Planning and managing dependencies across an Agile Release Train.
• Experience writing features, user stories, and acceptance criteria in Jira or a similar tool.
• Ability to query transaction and ledger data in SQL to investigate breaks.
• Clear written and spoken communication, with a track record of working across finance, operations, and technology teams and presenting to senior leaders.
• Bachelor's degree in finance, accounting, business, computer science, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Preferred, not required: certifications in product management, payments, or a related field.
• Preferred, not required: knowledge of financial regulations, compliance standards, and industry best practices.
• Preferred, not required: experience in fast-paced agile environments.

Conditions

Base salary varies by location and other factors. For a hire in Dallas, TX, the base salary is $115k - $125k per year, plus benefits, as required by law.

The company is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer that makes all employment decisions without regard to protected characteristics.

Benefits

• Competitive pay and benefits.
• Work abroad opportunities within a multinational company with 58 offices in 22 countries.
• 10 days of paid annual leave, plus sick leave and national holidays.
• Maternity and paternity leave plans.
• Medical, dental, vision, life, and short- and long-term disability insurance (plans vary by region).
• Retirement savings plans.
• A higher education certification policy.
• Commuter benefits (varies by region).
• Training focused on skills, technical knowledge, and personal growth.
• On-demand access to Udemy for Business with more than 5,000 curated courses.
• Coaching from experienced colleagues in the financial innovation labs and centers of excellence.
• Work on projects for leading tier-one banks, financial institutions, and insurers.
• A flat, approachable organization with a diverse, global culture.