Director, Product Management

Product leader in credit, lending, and fintech.

A decade building retail credit, direct consumer lending, and payments products, and the regulated middleware that holds them together. I run product end-to-end, from executive strategy to MVP delivery to scaled platforms.

If you're building in this space, thinking about a problem in it, or writing about it, I'd genuinely like to talk. Coffee, ideas, sharp questions, half-formed theses. The conversation is the point.

Book 30 minutes → See my work Email →
10yrs
Product · Fintech & lending
1K/wk
Cardmember acquisition target
2
Books authored
OH
Based · Remote-friendly
Sean McAuliffe
Sean McAuliffe · Director, Product Management
About

I've spent a decade building the systems that move money between people.

Most of that time across retail credit, direct consumer lending, and payments, running the product side of the unglamorous middleware that determines whether a financial product actually works at scale. Compliance, underwriting, partner-bank operations, application flows, the integrations nobody writes about.

I run product end-to-end: executive strategy, MVP delivery, scaled platforms. Right now I lead cardmember acquisition for a major retail credit program, write about the consumer credit industry from inside it, and build prototypes like Grantex to pressure-test the ideas before I write them up.

The throughline: I'm interested in how money actually moves, the systems we've built to make it move faster, and what we lose every time we make it move a little more invisibly.

§ 01

What I do

Three lanes · One operator

Lead

I run product organizations and partner with executive leadership to translate strategy into shipped software. Roadmap ownership, MVP delivery, stakeholder alignment, and being the operator engineering and the C-suite both trust to make the call.

Product strategy Roadmapping Team leadership MVP delivery

Build

I ship products end-to-end. Retail credit and cardmember acquisition flows, direct consumer lending platforms, payment processing systems. I also build fast: vision to working prototype in weeks using Claude Code, Lovable, Supabase, and the rest of the modern AI stack. Grantex is an example.

Vision-to-prototype Claude Code Lovable Supabase API design

Operate

I understand the mechanics of regulated lending, compliance, KYC/KYB, partner relationships, network rules. The unglamorous middleware that quietly eats 30% of engineering capacity if you don't plan for it.

Compliance product KYC · KYB Risk frameworks Reg ops
§ 02

Selected work

Built · Shipped · Operating
Product Lead · Current

Shop Your Way

2022 → · Cardmember acquisition & checkout

Lead product for new cardmember acquisition at checkout, both in-store and ecommerce, across internal teams and external partner integrations. Own the end-to-end product surface where a shopper becomes a cardholder: the offer, the application flow, the partner-bank handoff, and the merchant-side integration that makes any of it actually work. Program targeting 1,000+ new accounts per week at maturity.

Cardmember acquisition Checkout integration In-store & ecommerce Partner integration Application UX
Independent build · Prototype

Grantex

2025 → · Working prototype · Agentic payments

I had a thesis about agentic payments, that AI agents need credentials they can interrogate, not static card numbers, and I wanted to test it by actually building the thing. Grantex is the working prototype: API, MCP server, network integration, demo, and the product narrative around it. Vision to running prototype in a handful of weekends, using Claude Code, Lovable, Supabase, and GitHub. It's not a company; it's a credibility build. The essay that came out of it is below.

If you've got a fintech idea you need rendered as a working prototype, fast, by someone who knows the domain, this is the kind of thing I do.

Claude Code Lovable Supabase GitHub MCP protocol API design
View the prototype → Read the essay →
Founder · Advisory

Forefront Product

2015 → · forefrontproduct.com · Fractional product leadership

Fractional Head of Product for credit, lending, and fintech teams. Three- to nine-month engagements where I own the product function inside Series A–C startups and mid-market product orgs, level up PMs, and help hire the full-time leader who replaces me. A decade running, with engagements across retail credit, BNPL, direct consumer lending, and enterprise SaaS.

Fractional CPO Product strategy Team building Roadmap design PM coaching
forefrontproduct.com → Engage →
§ 03

Experience

A decade · Selected roles
2025 → Now

Grantex

Independent build · Prototype
Vision-to-prototype in weeks

Built a working prototype of agentic payments infrastructure to pressure-test a thesis I'd been writing about. Designed the API, MCP server, and demo using Claude Code, Lovable, Supabase, and GitHub. The build informed a 2,800-word essay on why static card credentials can't support autonomous agents.

Aug 2022 → Now

Shop Your Way

Product Lead · Cardmember Acquisition
Chicago, IL

Lead product for new cardmember acquisition at checkout, both in-store and ecommerce, across internal teams and external partner integrations. Own the application flow, the partner-bank handoff, and the merchant-side integration end-to-end.

  • Lead the product surface where a shopper becomes a cardholder, across in-store POS and ecommerce checkout
  • Coordinate cross-functional delivery between engineering, UX, compliance, and external partner banks and merchants
  • Program targeting 1,000+ new accounts per week at maturity; partnered with executive leadership on roadmap and prioritization
  • Introduced AI-driven rapid prototyping ("vibe coding") workflows that accelerated stakeholder feedback across the org
Feb → Aug 2022

PwC

Product Management Consultant · Large Financial Institution
Atlanta, GA · Contract

Engaged on a large financial institution engagement to translate PwC's market analysis into an actionable product roadmap and delivery plan for senior leadership.

  • Built full business process model and identified key APIs, KYC/KYB integrations
  • Established KPIs to support data-driven decision making
  • Coached client product managers and product owners on roadmapping, scrum, and agile delivery
Apr 2021 → Feb 2022

Guaranteed Rate Mortgage

Lead Product Owner
Chicago, IL

Product lead for the company's primary mortgage processing application, the largest B2C platform in the org, with 5,000+ daily users.

  • Led MVP delivery of the application from ideation to launch
  • Released a customer re-engagement suite that converted 5,000+ new customers
  • Worked directly with senior leaders to align features with business objectives
Aug 2020 → Apr 2021

Ford Credit

Product Manager · Contract
Allen Park, MI

Managed Ford Credit's payment processing platform (1,000+ transactions daily) and drove a security overhaul that reduced penetration-test vulnerability by 70%.

  • Established new team agile process: Team Working Agreement, Kanban, full scrum ceremonies
  • Partnered with upper management on product vision and roadmap
  • Protected scope and release goals against shifting business requirements
Feb 2019 → Aug 2020

Nissan Technical Center

Product Owner · Contract
Farmington Hills, MI

Managed three internal products with eleven off-shore engineering resources. Built a new mobile application from the ground up, database design, full UX, business process mapping.

  • Created full technical documentation including a crow's-foot data diagram, SQL and API documentation
  • Maintained product vision and roadmap across multiple internal applications
Jul 2016 → Feb 2019

Quicken Loans

Business Analyst
Detroit, MI

Managed projects from development through testing and implementation, facilitating communication between leadership, technology, and business partners. Evaluated business process inefficiencies and performed root-cause analysis.

§ 04

Skills & capabilities

Domain · Function · Tools

Domain expertise

Retail credit Cardmember acquisition Card issuing BNPL Payments processing Virtual cards Agentic payments Direct consumer lending Mortgage origination Auto lending Partner-bank ops

Product leadership

Product strategy Roadmap design Product vision MVP delivery Go-to-market Stakeholder mgmt PM coaching Agile leadership OKR design

Technical & design

Vision-to-prototype Claude Code Lovable Supabase GitHub MCP protocol API design Data modeling UX design Spec writing AI-driven prototyping

Regulatory & ops

KYC · KYB Compliance product Penetration test response Risk frameworks CFPB · state lending law Network rules
★
Certified SAFe Product Owner / Product Manager
★
Certified SAFe Scrum Master
★
Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
§ 05

Writing

See all 13 essays →
Essay · April 2026

I built agentic payments. Here's what nobody is talking about.

A static card number is invisible to an agent making a routing decision. Notes from building Grantex on why the credential is the problem.

Read essay → Case Study · Feb 2025

AI-Powered Product Ops: How a Fortune 200 Slashed Build Times

How AI-driven prototyping workflows accelerated stakeholder feedback and reduced time to validated decisions across a Fortune 200 product org.

Read on Forefront → Book · Published 2023

Autonomy Lost, the silent crisis in product management

On what happens when product teams lose ownership of the problems they were hired to solve. KDP. ISBN 979-8320767048.

On Amazon → Archive · 13 essays

The full writing archive

Essays on product ops, frameworks, agentic payments, and the operating mechanics of product management. Plus Pay Later, forthcoming 2026.

Browse all writing →
Sean McAuliffe

Let's talk.

I keep time on the calendar each week for new conversations, operators in credit, payments, and fintech, founders kicking around an idea, journalists working a story, anyone who's been thinking about something I might have an opinion on. Coffee, ideas, problem-solving, or wherever the conversation goes.

Book 30 minutes → Email → LinkedIn →