Lead Product Manager, Licensing and Global Expansion

About Uphold

A fast-growing fintech company, Uphold is pursuing a mission to accelerate access to blockchain technologies for people and companies worldwide. Founded in 2014, Uphold has millions of customers in over 150 countries and executes billions of dollars of crypto and fiat transactions a year. A bridge between old and new money systems, Uphold’s consumer offering is crypto-enabled neo-bank, allowing consumers ways to manage their daily finances with debit cards, direct deposit, high interest savings, crypto and precious metals trading, and many more features. We expose these through our APIs to businesses and institutions who can enable them to their customers for a seamless bridge between on-chain and traditional finance.

If this sounds interesting and challenging, we want to hear from you! Apply here!

The opportunity 

We’re looking for a Lead Product Manager, Licensing and Global Expansion to drive the roadmap and execution strategy behind Uphold’s entry into new markets. In this critical role, you will act as the connective force between licensing, product, and engineering teams—ensuring that our platform meets local compliance requirements while enabling innovative financial services to scale globally.

As the Product Manager, Licensing and Global Expansion, you will own the product roadmap that enables Uphold to operate compliantly across multiple jurisdictions. This includes leading the delivery of product and technical changes required by licensing frameworks, collaborating with internal product teams to adapt functionality for new regions, and maintaining an active feedback loop with our Legal, Compliance, and Regulatory teams.

This is a hands-on role requiring deep coordination with stakeholders and strong execution skills. You’ll need to manage ambiguity, navigate global regulatory dynamics, and prioritize engineering efforts in alignment with market expansion goals. You will work cross-functionally across engineering, legal, platform, and regional operations.

This is a hybrid role based in New York City, with an expectation of in-office presence weekly. 

Key responsibilities 

• Own the roadmap for product and technical requirements tied to licensing and regulatory changes across global jurisdictions.
  
• Translate licensing and compliance needs into actionable product requirements and engineering deliverables.
  
• Partner with internal teams to ensure cross-functional readiness for market launches, including updates to KYC, payments, customer experience, and reporting.
  
• Work closely with the platform team to build capabilities that scale across multiple regions and reduce future integration effort.
  
• Monitor and respond to evolving regulatory requirements in coordination with the legal, licensing, and compliance teams.
  
• Collaborate with regional expansion stakeholders and third-party partners to assess readiness and unblock execution issues.
  
• Communicate program status, risk, and trade-offs clearly across multiple stakeholders.
  
• Operate both strategically and tactically—able to manage roadmap planning cycles while owning detailed product work as needed.

Required qualifications

• Minimum 5 years of experience in product management or a related field, with direct experience in crypto or fintech.
  
• Strong familiarity with licensing, compliance, and regulatory processes, particularly in the context of financial technologies.
  
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate with legal, engineering, and business stakeholders to deliver compliant and scalable solutions.
  
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, International Relations, or equivalent hands-on experience.
  
• Experience managing global cross-functional teams and coordinating work across time zones.
  
• Strong organizational, analytical, and stakeholder communication skills.
  
• Self-starter with the ability to work asynchronously and independently in a fast-paced environment.
  
• Ability to travel globally as needed.
  
• Fluent in using LLMs and AI to accelerate your daily work.
  
  

Preferred skills

• Experience leading product expansion efforts into regulated international markets.
  
• Working knowledge of blockchain technologies and their intersection with compliance frameworks.
  
• Familiarity with licensing regimes (e.g. VASP, EMI, MSB) and how they translate into product and platform requirements.
  
• Previous experience working with regulators, auditors, or compliance stakeholders.
  
• Comfort operating in fast-paced startup environments with evolving priorities.
  

What we have to offer you

An amazing work environment in a company that continues to grow, driven by extraordinary and passionate people who keep up innovating and challenging more each day.

An international team, in a cutting-edge field, working on the most fascinating Projects.

Growth and career opportunities, and the chance to be proactive and creative.

A flexible and enthusiastic work environment that offers you snacks, a lot of coffee, and other great benefits. Interesting events that keep you connected with the team and celebrate our success. 

Foodie culture, lunch provided for all in office employees along with an assortment of complimentary snacks and beverages.  

Salary: $115,000 - $145,000 DOE + Bonus + Benefits, Unlimited PTO, 401K 

EEOC Employer

We're proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and we celebrate our employees' differences, including race, color, religion, gender identity, national origin, age, military service eligibility, veteran status, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, and any other protected classes. Difference makes us better.