Debit Project Manager

Debit Project Manager 

Job Title: Debit Project Manager / Debit Product Project Manager
Location: Atlanta, GA or Columbus, OH
Work Model: 100% Onsite
Employment Type: Contract – W-2
Visa: No visa restrictions( OPT Not allowed )

Position Summary

We are seeking an experienced Project/Program Manager with strong Debit Card and Payments domain expertise to lead strategic initiatives involving Debit Card products, payment processing platforms, digital banking, and related financial services capabilities.

The ideal candidate will have a strong combination of project/program management, debit product delivery, Agile execution, stakeholder management, and banking/payments domain knowledge, with experience delivering complex transformation initiatives within the financial services industry.

The Project Manager will work closely with Product Owners, Business Leaders, Technology Teams, Operations, Risk, Compliance, and third-party vendors to drive end-to-end delivery of business-critical initiatives while ensuring alignment with business objectives, regulatory requirements, and customer needs.

Key Responsibilities

Program & Project Leadership

• Lead end-to-end delivery of complex Debit Card, Payments, and Digital Banking initiatives across multiple workstreams.
• Develop and manage program roadmaps, project plans, milestones, dependencies, risks, issues, and budgets.
• Establish program governance, reporting frameworks, and delivery processes.
• Prepare executive-level status reports, presentations, and steering committee updates.
• Coordinate delivery across business, technology, operations, risk, compliance, and vendor teams.
• Manage cross-functional dependencies and proactively resolve delivery challenges.

Debit Product & Payments Expertise

• Partner with Product Owners and business stakeholders to define product vision, strategy, roadmap, and delivery priorities for Debit Card products.
• Drive initiatives involving:
  • Debit card issuance and lifecycle management
  • Debit transaction processing
  • Card controls and servicing
  • Tokenization
  • Digital wallets
  • Fraud prevention and risk controls
  • Customer authentication and servicing
  • Payment processing platforms
• Translate business requirements into actionable project plans, workstreams, and deliverables.
• Support prioritization of product features based on business value, customer impact, risk, and regulatory requirements.
• Work with technology and operations teams to ensure successful implementation of debit product capabilities.

Agile Delivery & Execution

• Lead Agile delivery teams and coordinate activities across multiple Scrum teams.
• Facilitate PI Planning, sprint planning, sprint reviews, backlog refinement, release planning, and retrospectives as required.
• Track sprint and release progress, dependencies, risks, issues, and delivery metrics.
• Remove impediments and ensure timely resolution of project issues.
• Coordinate releases and ensure readiness across business, technology, operations, and support teams.
• Drive continuous improvement across delivery processes and team performance.

Stakeholder & Vendor Management

• Serve as the primary coordination point between business and technology stakeholders.
• Manage relationships with Product Owners, senior business leaders, engineering teams, operations, risk, compliance, and external vendors.
• Facilitate cross-functional meetings and drive decisions and action items to closure.
• Manage vendor deliverables, timelines, dependencies, and escalations.
• Communicate complex project information effectively to both technical and executive audiences.

Risk, Compliance & Governance

• Identify, assess, track, and mitigate project/program risks and issues.
• Ensure initiatives align with applicable banking, payments, security, risk, and regulatory requirements.
• Maintain project documentation, governance artifacts, RAID logs, and decision records.
• Escalate critical risks and dependencies to appropriate leadership.

Required Skills & Experience

• 8 years of experience in Project Management, Program Management, or Technology Delivery.
• Strong experience within Banking, Financial Services, Payments, or FinTech environments.
• Proven experience working with Debit Card products and/or payment processing.
• Experience managing large, complex, cross-functional technology or business transformation initiatives.
• Strong understanding of the Debit Card lifecycle and payments ecosystem.
• Experience working with Product Owners and business stakeholders on product roadmaps and delivery.
• Strong Agile/Scrum delivery experience.
• Experience coordinating multiple teams/workstreams simultaneously.
• Strong skills in project planning, risk management, dependency management, governance, and executive reporting.
• Excellent stakeholder communication and presentation skills.
• Experience working with third-party vendors and technology partners.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making abilities.

Preferred / Nice-to-Have Skills

• Experience with digital banking and card modernization initiatives.
• Knowledge of card networks, payment processors, tokenization, and digital wallets.
• Experience with debit card authorization, clearing, settlement, or transaction processing.
• Knowledge of fraud detection, card controls, and payment security.
• Experience with SAFe / PI Planning and enterprise Agile environments.
• Experience delivering large-scale banking transformation programs.
• Familiarity with tools such as Jira, Confluence, MS Project, PowerPoint, Excel, and SharePoint.
• PMP, PMI-ACP, CSM, SAFe, or similar project/program management certification is a plus.