iwoca Ltd.  logo iwoca Ltd.

Technical Product Manager - Lending API

Created on 17-01-2022
Location London

Description

About iwoca

We started in 2012, when we noticed a problem: on average, it was taking eight weeks (and a lot of paperwork) for small businesses to apply for a loan. Worse still, more often than not, that process was ending in a ‘no’.

We knew that bakeries, building firms, salons, and solicitors deserved better. They deserve to be able to grow – hire more hands, invest in stock, market themselves – without all the hold music and absurdly rigid criteria.

We’ve now been around for a decade, and in that time, we’ve:

  • grown to a team of 290 iwocans
  • worked with over 50,000 small businesses across the UK and Germany
  • redesigned the whole business loan process from start to finish – our record is three minutes, 26 seconds.

It’s a good start, but it’s just the beginning. Our mission is help one million businesses who need us, so we still have a long way to go.

Here’s what we’ve learned about lending along the way:

  • Technology is the way to change this space

From automated decisions to API integrations, tech has the potential to create the changes small businesses have been waiting for – so we can’t stop innovating.

  • Embedded finance is the future

More and more, we’re reaching customers by embedding our loans within the apps and systems they use everyday. Our partners are people like neobanks, online marketplaces and accountancy software companies.

  • Payments and credit are converging

Lots of small businesses struggle with cash flow; often getting invoices paid from their customers months after paying their own bills. Loans can help them pay these bills, but we also want to tackle the problem at its root by improving payment terms.

  • New products are always possible

We’re working to create new loans of all shapes and sizes, and we’ve recently launched iwocaPay to help with these cash flow conundrums.

We work hard to make iwoca a place where everyone feels welcome - we want everyone to confidently be themselves. For us, diversity isn't an optional add-on. It's the thing that makes us great.

The Role

Supported by the £10M government grant we won in 2019, we are building OpenLending - a platform that enables partners to seamlessly offer iwoca’s lending products from within the partner journey, using our Lending API.

As a Technical Product Manager, you will take responsibility for the ideation, management, and delivery of projects improving our Lending API. You will also support or collaborate with the Senior Product Manager in the delivery of larger ongoing or long-term projects, and may work closely with external partners to deliver high-value API integrations.

This role sits in our product function, reporting to the Senior Product Manager for Open Lending.

You’ll be expected to be able to, on any given day:

Facilitate product discovery & prioritisation:

  • Lead collaborative sessions across a hybrid work environment. For example, the team might be interested in creating a new endpoint, and it’s your responsibility to hold a session or multiple sessions to go through options, gather feedback, and assess feasibility.
  • Groom our backlog. Figure out which tasks are high priority, which can be put on the back burner, and which aren’t worth doing.
  • Update the team’s roadmap through collaboration with the Senior PM, Tech Lead, and our commercial teams.
  • Know what a web API is, have opinions on it, and be able to clearly articulate and fight for those opinions.
  • Use and test the APIs we’re building, for example via Postman or command line, and incorporate your findings back into the API product.
  • Understand customer needs and market context through data analysis & user research.
  • Draw up product / feature requirements documents and include well-researched success metrics.

Enable integration journeys for our partners:

  • Prototype and troubleshoot effectively using at least one coding language -- Python and Javascript are the most helpful, but others are fine too. If a partner comes to us with a technical problem, you should be able to understand and solve it, or know when to get the team’s engineers involved.
  • Work closely with our Partner Success team to both strategise ideal technical integration pathways and turn partner feedback into actionable projects or tickets.
  • Contribute to meaningful discussions around what technical improvements we can make to our Lending API that will improve the partner experience
  • Stress test new features from a partner perspective and identify any gaps in functionality
  • Speak directly with our Lending API partners and be able to advise on the best integration strategy for them.

Organise team management, communication, & delivery:

  • Communicate effectively with internal stakeholders. We work very closely with the commercial and tech teams and you’ll need to be able to incorporate their feedback and keep them in the loop. You’ll also need to manage expectations and competing priorities, and be able to push back when required.
  • Manage workflows on a cross-functional team. Make sure projects are delivered on time and to specification.
  • Write clear documentation and notes, and overcommunicate where required. Since this product is externally-facing, we need to keep a clear record of why decisions were made & how everything works. Your team and those you work with should always be able to reference written material.

Requirements

Ideally, you’ll have:

  • Experience in a technical- and/or product-related role -- but we are looking for skills, not necessarily seniority, so encourage all levels of experience to apply. Since working with the API is a particularly technical subject, we’re looking for someone with technical experience that wants to or already has crossed over into product, or someone with product experience that has picked up technical or coding skills.
  • Strong project management and multi-tasking skills. You have a track record in successfully managing multiple projects and relationships at the same time
  • Confidence and experience working with multiple internal stakeholders and external partners
  • Excellent communication and interpersonal skills. You thrive in environments that require building relationships built on trust and expertise.

You would get extra points for the following, but they’re not required:

  • Experience with a fintech, financial products, or lending products specifically
  • Contributed directly to an API or API-enabled product (through development or otherwise)
  • Fluency in German

Benefits

What’s life like as an iwocan?

We all enjoy:

  • Bright, modern office spaces in London (Fitzrovia) & Leeds, and we support remote compatible working.
  • A calendar of both in-office and remote events week including Bingo, Comedy Nights, Escape Room challenges….
  • Two company retreats a year (in places like the French Alps or Spanish seaside).
  • Pool, ping pong, foosball tables and tournaments.
  • Virtual and in-office yoga classes every Tuesday and Thursday morning.
  • An ever-growing number of clubs including climbing, chess, football and boxing.
  • Plenty of drinks and snacks in our office kitchen.

Just for you:

  • Medical insurance from Vitality, including discounted gym membership.
  • We take your well being incredibly seriously, so you’ll have instant access to emotional and mental health support services via our partner Spill.
  • Share options.
  • Enhanced maternity and shared parental leave.
  • A workplace nursery tax benefit scheme. Save £££ on your nursery costs.
  • 25 days holiday per year and an extra day off on your birthday.
  • All the equipment you need to set up your home working space up.
  • Paid volunteering time for you to support your chosen charity.
  • Extra leave if you want to travel or study.
  • Special celebrations for anniversaries and long service including sabbatical.
  • Flexible working arrangements.
  • Cycle-to-work scheme.

And to make sure we all keep learning, we offer:

  • L&D budget including a book budget to encourage you to keep learning.
  • Tickets to tech conferences across Europe.
  • Company-wide talks with internal and external speakers.
  • A calendar of meetups we host at our office.
  • Access to learning platforms like Treehouse.

Benefit

25 days holiday a year, plus all UK Bank holidays

25 days holi...

A smart, fun and internationally diverse team - together, we represent over 35 different nationalities

A smart, fun...

Additional leave so that you can take more time to go travelling or to study, outside of your holiday allowance

Additional l...

An additional Day Off on your Birthday

An additiona...

Company-wide talks with internal and external speakers

Company-wide...

Cycle-to-work scheme for great value bikes

Cycle-to-wor...

Enhanced maternity/paternity leave and shared parental leave

Enhanced mat...

Plenty of drinks and snacks in our office kitchen

Plenty of dr...

Pool, ping pong, foosball tables and tournaments, morning yoga and an ever-growing number of active clubs (you can set up your own!)

Pool, ping p...

Regular novelty perks such as free massages, which can be proposed by anyone in the team

Regular nove...

Stock options for all employees after 6 months within the business

Stock option...

The opportunity to give your time to support a charity of your choice, via a paid volunteering day

The opportun...

Working from the summer/ winter house twice a year

Working from...

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