Forward Deployed AI Product Manager, FSI

We are hiring a Forward Deployed AI Product Manager (FDPM) to be the connective tissue between our clients and our engineering teams. This is not a traditional PM role. You will live at the intersection of product strategy, technical delivery, and client partnership - spending meaningful time embedded with banks, credit unions, and insurance carriers to deeply understand their workflows, then translating those insights into AI-powered solutions that ship.

Think of this as: part Product Manager, part Implementation Consultant, part Pre/Post-Sales Engineer.

Whether you have run operations inside a bank, credit union, or insurance carrier, implemented enterprise software at a core banking, digital banking, policy administration, or claims vendor, or advised financial services clients as a consultant - if you have felt the pull toward product and AI, this role was built for you.

What You'll Do:

Client Engagement & Discovery

• Serve as the primary Product point of contact and trusted advisor for a portfolio of banking and insurance clients, including owning relationships across contact center operations, digital and channel leadership, claims and servicing operations, IT, and risk/compliance stakeholders, often working alongside C-suite sponsors.

• Lead structured discovery engagements - interviews, workflow mapping, call and queue observation, side-by-sides with agents, and document analysis - to surface automation opportunities and unmet customer, policyholder, or operational needs.

• Define the “art of the possible” for each client, helping them connect their operational pain points to our AI platform capabilities - while respecting the regulatory and disclosure constraints they operate under.

Solution Design & Scoping

• Review the pre-sales Statement of Work drafted by the Solution Architect to confirm scope, feasibility, and design alignment before it is signed by the customer.

• Translate real-world workflows - card disputes and fraud alerts, payments and transfers, account and policy servicing, loan servicing and collections, first notice of loss (FNOL) and claims status, premium billing - into structured product and configuration requirements, in collaboration with Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs), Applied ML, and Solution Engineers.

• Own the quality, consistency, and completeness of the Autopilot design and specification documents that serve as the handoff to engineering, including required disclosures, authentication and identity-verification steps, consent capture, and human-handoff criteria.

• Define the business success metrics for the engagement (time-to-value, containment/call deflection, self-service completion rate, first-contact resolution, average handle time, claims and dispute cycle time, cost per contact) with the client.

• Enforce scope discipline during UAT - route requests outside the agreed design doc and SOW to the Sales/Account team so that they follow change order processes, rather than absorbing them into the current engagement.

Pilots, Deployment & Value Delivery

• Own 0→1 deployments end-to-end (from pilot kickoff through go-live): manage timelines, stakeholder communication, change management, and the iteration cycle to production-ready deployments.

• Generate test criteria from build artifacts and conduct manual validation (e.g., live call testing, authentication and disclosure path testing) before approving customer UAT.

• Partner with the client’s compliance, legal, and information security teams to clear the reviews and control requirements that gate go-live in regulated environments.

• Drive customer UAT to completion as efficiently as possible, including on-site travel for strategic or marquee accounts to accelerate UAT and fine-tuning.

• Monitor deployed Autopilots post-launch by using observability tooling, evaluating performance, and driving resolution of issues that surface.

• Ensure clients and Customer Experience Managers (CXMs) can successfully measure business success metrics for the deployment before handing ongoing success measurement to the CXMs.

• Document ROI proof points and case-for-scale narratives at go-live and deployment milestones; hand off to CXMs to drive expansion and renewal.

Product Feedback & Roadmap Influence

• Surface reusable patterns and high-priority gaps from field deployments to the core product roadmap, partnering with FDEs, ML engineers, and product leadership to turn client-specific work into productized features.

• Contribute to internal knowledge bases, playbooks, and templates that systematize the FDPM practice as we scale.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in financial services or financial services technology, with hands-on exposure to banking or insurance operations in one or more of the following domains: Retail & Commercial Banking Servicing (account servicing, payments, card disputes, fraud alerts), Lending & Collections (originations, loan servicing, delinquency management), or Insurance Operations (FNOL and claims, policy servicing, quoting and new business).

• Demonstrated experience in a client-facing delivery role - implementation, technical project management, solution consulting, or customer success - where you owned outcomes, not just activities.

• Ability to quickly understand and map complex customer-facing and back-office workflows, then distill them into structured requirements and prioritized problem statements.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to present to VP/C-suite stakeholders at banks and carriers and translate between operations, risk/compliance, and technical audiences.

• Working familiarity with the regulatory context these workflows sit in - TCPA outbound contact rules, Reg E and Reg Z disclosures, call recording and consent, GLBA and PCI DSS data handling, or NAIC market conduct expectations - and the judgment to know when to pull in legal or compliance.

• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and whitespace; you default to action and bring structure to uncertainty.

• Experience with agentic workflows and a strong curiosity about AI and automation; you don’t need to be an engineer, but you must be genuinely excited by what AI can do in financial services and eager to develop deep product fluency in this space.

• Willingness to travel up to 25–35% to client sites for discovery, UAT, go-live support, and executive meetings.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience at a core banking, digital banking, payments, policy administration, or claims software vendor in a Project Manager, Implementation Consultant, Technical Services, or similar role.

• Prior experience in a startup or high-growth technology company in a PM, solutions engineering, or FDE-adjacent capacity.

• Familiarity with contact center technology (CCaaS, IVR, conversational AI, NLP) or prior exposure to platforms such as Genesys, NICE, Five9, Nuance, or similar.

• Understanding of APIs and financial services integration and data standards - core banking and policy admin APIs, ISO 20022, FDX/open banking, ACORD, or CRM integrations (Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics).

• Exposure to fraud, dispute, or claims platforms, or to identity and authentication tooling used in customer servicing.

• Experience building or contributing to product roadmaps, writing PRDs, or working in Agile/scrum delivery processes.

• Background or experience in banking operations, insurance claims or underwriting, wealth or capital markets operations, fintech, or a related field.

How Success Is Measured:

This role is outcome-oriented. You will be evaluated on the impact you create — not just the activities you complete. Key success indicators include:

• Time-to-value: Speed from discovery kickoff to production-ready AI deployment for each client engagement.

• Pilot success rate: Percentage of pilots advancing to full-scale production rollout.

• Expansion & renewal: Customers you support renew and grow - driven by measurable, documented ROI.

• Product feedback quality: Volume and quality of field insights surfaced into the core product roadmap.

• Client health: NPS, engagement, and stakeholder relationship scores across your portfolio.

Pay Range (OTE Pay): $190,000 - $240,000

Other Types of Pay: Based on level and role the employee may be eligible for long term incentives in the form of equity and short term incentives of either bonus or commission.

Health Insurance: Medical, Dental, Vision, Life and Disability Insurance, Employee Assistance Program (EAP).

Retirement Benefits: 401(k) plan

Paid Time Off: Talkdesk offers an uncapped paid time off program for exempt employees and an accrual-based program for non-exempt employees; both are subject to manager approval and consistent with business needs.

Paid Holidays: Talkdesk offers 14 paid holidays each year.

Paid Sick Leave: Exempt employees have uncapped paid time off and non-exempt sick leave follows accrual standards; both are subject to manager approval and consistent with business needs.

Method of Application: Apply online.

Application Window: The application window is expected to close at least 10 days from the posting date. The application was posted on 7/4/2026.

Benefits and perks listed above may vary based on the nature of your employment with Talkdesk.

All questions or concerns about this posting should be directed to the Talent team at Talent@talkdesk.com.

Talkdesk is pioneering a new era of Customer Experience Automation (CXA), redefining how the world’s most admired brands interact with their customers through AI. Our global team of courageous innovators is customer-obsessed, building AI-first solutions that put empathy, trust, and transparency at the center of every interaction. We foster an inclusive culture where diverse perspectives drive our success and every voice belongs. Combining the stability of a global leader with the agility of a disruptor, Talkdeskers are empowered with the autonomy to drive meaningful impact, while giving back to the communities and environment around us.

Talkdesk has been recognized as a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) and in the G2 Overall Grid® Reports for AI Agents and Contact Center. With seven consecutive years on the Forbes Cloud 100 and multiple AI Breakthrough awards, there has never been a more exciting time to join us as we shape the future of customer experience automation!

Work Environment and Physical Requirements:

Primarily office-environment work, extended periods of sitting or standing, computer-based work. Limited lifting, and equipment usage limited to computer-related equipment (keyboards, mouse, etc.)

The Talkdesk story hinges on empathy and acceptance. It is the shared goal among all Talkdeskers to empower a new kind of customer hero through our innovative software solution, and we firmly believe that the best path to success for our mission is inclusivity, diversity, and genuine acceptance. To that end, we will hire, promote, work along, cheer for, bond with, and warmly welcome into the Talkdesk family all persons without regard to ethnic and racial identity, indigenous heritage, national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status.