Senior Product Manager

Role Overview

Join Kernel as a Senior Product Manager responsible for shaping how New Zealanders join, fund, and manage their investments through Kernel's platform. You will oversee the entire investor experience from initial sign-up to long-term financial goals.

Role Details

This position is within the experience stream of Kernel's product team, handling everything from onboarding and first deposits through portfolio viewing, progress tracking, and goal planning. You will have full ownership of your product area: setting strategy, advocating for initiatives with leadership and the Board, and collaborating closely with design and engineering teams to implement features. The role reports directly to the Chief Product Officer within a small, collaborative product and design group.

Kernel embraces an agile development approach with quarterly goals, two-week sprints, and daily releases, encouraging innovation with flexible scope as the team evolves.

About Kernel

Kernel is a fully New Zealand-owned fintech company dedicated to making wealth accessible to all Kiwis. Their platform integrates KiwiSaver, Managed Funds, US shares, ETFs, and Smart Saver accounts, trusted by over 80,000 investors. The company is currently scaling rapidly, fostering a culture focused on collaboration, hands-on work, ambition, trust, and innovation.

Key Responsibilities

• Define strategy, roadmap, and priority for areas such as onboarding, activation, and ongoing investor experience following initial deposit.
• Establish measurable goals quarterly to track progress and product impact through relevant metrics.
• Present initiatives and business cases to senior leadership and the Board, highlighting customer and commercial benefits.
• Collaborate hands-on with design and engineering teams to deliver features from concept through deployment.
• Extract insights across departments, synthesizing them into clear narratives, specifications, and actionable tickets.
• Advocate for customer needs, working alongside Design on research and testing before development begins.
• Innovate new methods for funding accounts, investing, and goal planning, enhancing first deposits and portfolio insights.
• Coordinate with Marketing to ensure effective go-to-market strategies for new feature releases.
• Partner with Compliance and Customer Success teams to ensure regulatory adherence and customer satisfaction.

Candidate Profile

• Minimum 5 years of experience in product management, with proven success launching and scaling digital products.
• Experience designing and developing retail, customer-facing applications or web platforms with high standards for UX/UI.
• Strong commercial acumen linking product decisions to revenue and growth opportunities.
• Practical experience working in agile environments that ship frequently, comfortable with flexible methodologies rather than strict Scrum.
• Competency in defining and analyzing product metrics using tools like Mixpanel.
• Excellent research, analytical thinking, and decision-making capabilities.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, simplifying complex ideas for varied audiences.
• Effective stakeholder management across technical teams, executives, and Board members.
• Curiosity, humility, and readiness to question the status quo to drive improvements.
• Background in fintech, wealth management, or regulated financial services is advantageous but not mandatory.

What Makes Kernel Attractive

• Complete ownership of a product vertical from strategy through to shipping.
• Close collaboration with an engineering team that ships daily and adapts quickly to new evidence.
• Impact on a platform used by over 80,000 investors to grow wealth.
• A company culture grounded in trust, collaboration, flexibility, and open, constructive feedback.
• Flexible hybrid work model with minimum three days in office and up to two days remote weekly.
• Southern Cross health insurance covering pre-existing conditions and discounted family coverage.
• Thirteen weeks of parental leave top-up to full salary and free, confidential employee assistance program (EAP).
• Support for professional development and a learning budget.
• Additional Kernel holidays, stocked office snacks and coffee, and a dog-friendly workplace.

Application Encouragement

Applicants need not fulfill every listed criterion as the company values mindset, impact, and growth potential equally with experience. Candidates should submit a cover letter explaining their enthusiasm for the role and company along with their curriculum vitae.