Product Manager, Issuer Activation

Product Manager, Issuer Activation

We're building the next generation of capital-markets infrastructure, starting with a modern, digital-native transfer agent designed for today's public companies.

Vinyl Equity is transforming one of the most legacy-heavy and operationally critical parts of the capital markets by delivering the first API-driven, real-time infrastructure for public companies. Our platform replaces slow, manual processes with secure, automated workflows that help issuers operate faster, more efficiently, and with greater confidence.

We're backed by leading investors including Index Ventures, Spark Capital, Infinity Ventures, and others who have funded many of the world's most impactful financial-technology companies. Our team draws from deep experience at NYSE, Equiniti, Computershare, and AngelList, giving us a unique understanding of the industry's pain points — and how to solve them.

We have a massive market, a well-defined customer, and strong momentum. With demand accelerating and new product lines on the horizon, there's never been a better time to join.

About the Role

Every Vinyl customer's journey — from a hot-IPO entrant to an established Fortune 500 transferring off a legacy TA — runs through Issuer Activation: the product surface that takes a company from first conversation, through a sandboxed demo environment, all the way to live on Vinyl. Issuer Activation is where prospective customers experience what Vinyl actually feels like, and where new customers complete their migration from their incumbent TA. It is one of the most strategically important moments of every customer relationship, and it deserves a product leader who treats it that way.

We're seeking a senior Product Manager to own Issuer Activation end-to-end. On the pre-sales side, you own the demo environment that lets prospective issuers experience the Vinyl platform with realistic, scenario-driven data — whether they're a fresh IPO with no cap-table history or a mature public company with decades of corporate-action complexity. On the post-sales side, you own the activation product that takes an issuer from contract signature to live, with a self-serve, sandbox-first, diagnostic-led experience. You will own the roadmap end-to-end, partnering closely with our engineering, operations, and post-sales teams.

The industry myth that TA conversion is inherently difficult and slow has been Vinyl's opportunity. We've built the technology to ingest historical transactions, identify gaps and discrepancies, and help our customers reconcile and maintain clean data going forward. The platform already exists. Your role is to bring its full power to our customers — to make a process that legacy providers describe as a quarter-long project feel like the modern, software-led experience it should be.

Issuer Activation is also the product face of one of Vinyl's most strategically important narratives: the migration from a legacy TA to a modern one. Every new issuer we win is leaving someone else, and how that activation feels is part of why they chose us. You will represent Issuer Activation in customer conversations alongside our sales team, and partner with the operations team to deliver a product-led implementation experience for every new issuer.

Key Responsibilities

• Own and drive the Issuer Activation product roadmap end-to-end — covering the pre-sales demo environment, issuer onboarding, cap-table migration from legacy TAs, KYC/KYB intake, data ingestion, sandbox environments, and the orchestration that takes a new issuer live on Vinyl.
• Own the pre-sales demo environment — the platform experience that lets prospective issuers explore Vinyl with realistic, scenario-driven data, whether they're a fresh IPO or a mature public company evaluating a switch.
• Define and ship the self-serve migration experience — where issuers can prepare, validate, and dry-run their migration through a sandbox before going live, with full visibility into every step of the process.
• Make Vinyl's Data Ingestion Application (DIA) platform diagnostic-first — every data-quality signal surfaced with clear, actionable guidance so issuers can resolve at the source, well in advance of going live.
• Partner closely with our Operations team to deliver a product-led implementation experience — our post-sales implementation team are the closest people to the issuer, and you will give them the product they need to shepherd every new customer through activation.
• Partner closely with our DIA and Core engineering teams on architecture, data quality, error handling, and reconciliation — you will not manage the engineers, but you will set the product direction they execute against.
• Represent Issuer Activation in sales conversations with prospective issuers — acting as the product and technical voice alongside the sales team. Migration is part of why customers choose Vinyl over an incumbent, and you make that story tangible.
• Define and track success metrics: pre-sales conversion, time-to-live, data-quality signal resolution rates, issuer self-serve completion, and post-migration customer satisfaction.
• Write clear product specs, decision memos, and customer-facing playbooks. Translate the operational, legal, and data complexity of migrations into narratives that engineers, executives, and customers can act on.

This is a Chicago-based role at our West Loop headquarters, and candidates must be able to work in-office at least three days per week.

Role Requirements

• 7+ years of product management experience, including 3+ years in data, migration, or fintech operations — product roles where data quality, ingestion pipelines, or system-of-record transitions were central.
• Direct experience shipping product against complex data ingestion, reconciliation, or migration workflows.
• Track record of building self-serve, diagnostic-led products that scale customer experience without scaling operational load proportionally.
• Strong working knowledge of how to surface data-quality signals as actionable, customer-resolvable guidance rather than internal tickets.
• Comfort with technical architecture and cross-functional collaboration with engineering leads on ingestion design, exception handling, and reconciliation.
• Experience designing sandbox or test environments where customers can validate before production cutover.
• Strong written communication: product specs, customer-facing migration playbooks, investor and board updates.
• Experience working with distributed international engineering teams.
• Hands-on experience with AI/ML tools in a product or operational setting.

Nice to Haves

• Exposure to capital markets, transfer agency, broker-dealer operations, or securities settlement.
• Experience leading data-migration product at a fintech, brokerage, banking platform, or equivalent regulated environment.
• Prior work on cap-table products, equity administration tools, or securities operations platforms.
• Familiarity with KYC/KYB workflows and the operational practices that translate compliance requirements into product.
• Background as an implementation lead, solutions architect, or operations engineer before moving into product — first-hand familiarity with how migrations work gives you a sharper sense of what to automate.

You Could Be A Great Fit If:

• You believe customer experience is built into the product, not bolted on afterward. Your instinct is to design the system so customers succeed by default.
• You've built your career inside regulated, operationally complex B2B environments and care about the craft of making them feel simple.
• You're energized by ambiguity and want to define how a function operates rather than inherit a structure built by someone else.
• You enjoy the craft of customer experience through anticipating needs, communicating proactively, and making complex things feel inevitable.
• You're motivated by fast growth and excited by the pace, autonomy, and opportunity that comes with an early-stage startup.
• You're energized by the idea of helping introduce real innovation into an industry that has largely stood still for nearly three decades.
• You bring rigor to documentation, process, and follow-through and expect the same from your partners.

Why Join Us?

• Own one of the most strategically important moments of every customer relationship at Vinyl — the moment they choose to leave a legacy TA and trust us with their cap table.
• Work directly with the CEO, CRO, and CTO; influence company strategy from day one.
• Competitive salary, equity, and full benefits.
• Chicago HQ + global engineering team.

Benefits (for U.S.-based full-time employees)

• Target base salary: $160K–$200K, commensurate with experience
• Equity-