Founding Product Lead
Pubblicato il 21-09-2026 - WhyBrilliant in Milano
WhyBrilliant is sourcing applicants for this role on behalf of an early-stage transatlantic fintech startup automating highly regulated compliance.
The company's identity may stay confidential until first contact.
Atlas, our AI Recruiter, is running this search and will pick the best candidates from Nova's network. The next step is to speak to Nova.
The Role
Job Title: Founding Product Lead
Location: Milan, Italy
Why this role matters
Our technical team is highly senior and ships at lightning speed, but we currently lack a formal product definition layer. Without you, we cannot scale our delivery or reliably close the loop between sales demands and engineering execution. This role exists to establish that missing product discipline while keeping pace with a pushy engineering culture and satisfying the exceptionally rigid quality bars of bank CISOs and regulators.
What you'll do
- Establish and run our very first structured product definition and roadmapping processes from scratch.
- Join customer discovery calls with MLROs and heads of compliance to translate complex regulatory requirements into clear engineering specs.
- Bridge the gap between sales and engineering by closing the feedback loop between HubSpot and Linear.
- Write code and ship features directly, spending roughly 50% of your time hands-on in the codebase.
- Commandeer product delivery to ensure critical deadlines are consistently met without sacrificing compliance quality.
What success looks like
Month 1: You will dive deep into our existing codebase, shadow the CRO on customer discovery calls with MLROs, and absorb our end-to-end compliance solution workflows.
Month 2-3: You will ship your first critical product features directly to the codebase and design our very first structured product definition and roadmapping process from scratch.
By end of Q1: By the end of your first quarter,
you will have brought measurable structure to our world-class engineering team and established a reliable cadence for product delivery based on real customer validation.
Who this is a fit for
- Taken a product from zero to paying customers with clear metrics to prove it.
- Highly technical builder who codes but does not make engineering their entire identity.
- Deep background in fintech, compliance, fraud, identity, risk, or payments domains.
- Exceptionally organized operator who comfortably commands a room and holds launch dates.
- Capable of disagreeing directly with a CTO, CRO, and CEO without needing to win.
What it's like to work here
High-speed, early-stage environment that values directness and extreme ownership. The engineering team is senior and highly pushy (which is treated as a feature). Decisions are fast, and product definition is currently non-existent, meaning this role is expected to build that process from scratch. However, they operate in highly regulated spaces (OCC, FDIC, FCA, Fed), so the quality bar is incredibly rigid and 'move fast and break things' does not apply when dealing with a bank's CISO. Their work model is hybrid/remote with Milan as the initial hub and New York as a secondary hub, offering optional quarterly offsites.
The offer
- Absolute ownership to build a product management function completely from scratch.
- Direct, high-bandwidth collaboration with an exceptionally senior, fast-moving engineering team.
- High-autonomy remote work environment with hub access in Milan and New York.
- Regular strategic alignment during optional quarterly team offsites.
This probably isn't for you if
- You want to manage a team and delegate tasks rather than directly doing the work and coding.
- You need defined corporate processes, established handoffs, or structured training wheels to be effective.
- You are looking for a comfortable corporate title or a slow-paced, low-stakes environment.
This job is hosted on whybrilliant.com.
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