Product Manager · AI-Enabled Products · Fintech · Payroll · Insurance · Greenfield

Sarah
Schmirl

I build products from scratch and make them scale — from 13 to 125 enterprise clients, 3 to 25+ integrations, and now into the frontier of agentic AI.

Agentic AI Fintech Insurtech Payroll & HCM Greenfield SaaS LLM Training Implementation Remote / Relocate
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10+
Years in Product
125
Enterprise Clients Scaled
25+
ERP Integrations Built
28
Countries Led Globally
About

Product strategy meets
human intuition

I'm a Product Manager and AI product specialist with 10+ years building enterprise SaaS products that actually get adopted — not just shipped, across fintech, payroll, insurance, and agentic AI.

My sweet spot is the messy, exciting early stage: a problem that needs solving, a blank whiteboard, and a cross-functional team that needs someone to connect the dots between vision and execution. I've done it across fintech (Paymerang), insurance and global assistance (Allianz, 28 countries), payroll/HCM (Paychex, $10B+), and now in agentic AI.

What I care about most, beyond the product itself, is the people around it. I love building sales teams that can tell a compelling product story. I love coaching client success teams to feel confident and equipped. And I love the kind of cross-functional trust that makes shipping feel like momentum instead of chaos.

Currently based in Timnath, Colorado. Available immediately — open to remote, hybrid, or relocation for the right role.

Sarah Schmirl in the Tetons
A line I come back to
"What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead."
— Nelson Mandela
What drives me
"Give me a root-cause problem, a cross-functional team, and the space to think creatively — and I'll build something that lasts."
Philosophy
Passionate about building products that improve how people work — energized by complex problems, simplified workflows, and collaborative development.
Currently
AI Trainer & Data Analyst at Howie AI — building training datasets and auditing LLM outputs for an AI-powered executive assistant product.
Outside of work
International travel, yoga & Ayurveda, gardening, photography, and design. Chronicled at thegirlsnomad.com →
Expertise

Where I do my
best work

A decade of product experience across AI, enterprise SaaS, fintech, and global operations.

🤖
Agentic AI & LLM Products

Hands-on experience designing agentic workflows, building AI-assisted automation, and auditing LLM outputs in production systems. Proficient with Claude, LibreChat (custom enterprise LLM), GitHub Copilot, and Miro AI. Currently fine-tuning LLM and ML models at Howie AI.

🌱
Greenfield Product Development

Built two enterprise SaaS platforms from zero. Scaled one from 13 to 125 clients across 17 industries in under two years. Comfortable with ambiguity, fast iterations, and the specific discipline of 0-to-1 product thinking.

🗺️
Product Strategy & Roadmapping

Data-driven roadmap prioritization, OKR alignment with executive leadership, and customer discovery through interviews, workflow analysis, and market research. A-CSPO and CSM certified.

🎯
Sales Enablement & Product Marketing

Built battlecards, demo scripts, and product narratives that shortened sales cycles. Authored white papers and feature release documentation that translate complex technical capabilities into compelling business narratives for enterprise buyers. Designed enablement programs that helped client success teams feel confident servicing complex platforms.

🎨
UI/UX Strategy & Discovery

User research, wireframing, journey mapping, and Jobs-to-Be-Done frameworks. Guided design teams to build solutions that align with real user behavior — not just feature requests.

🌍
Global Product Operations

Led product and implementation strategy across 32 offices in 28 countries at Allianz Partners. Experienced managing multi-timezone stakeholders, international rollouts, and cross-cultural teams.

Experience

A track record of
building things that scale

Jun 2026 – Present
Howie AI
AI Trainer & Data Analyst · Contract

Training the models that power AI-first products

Working directly with LLM and ML models for an AI-powered executive assistant — auditing outputs, building training datasets, identifying failure patterns, and applying a product lens to ensure the model reflects real user expectations.

LLM Training Model Auditing Training Data Curation AI Quality
2023 – Jun 2026
Mindex
Product Owner & Business Analyst (serving Paychex)

Enterprise digital transformation & AI product development

Led product strategy and business analysis for Paychex ($10B+ payroll/HCM). Shipped legacy InfoPath deprecation, a self-service onboarding platform reducing average onboarding to under two days, automated specialist assignment supporting 200+ implementation specialists, and AI-assisted workflows using Claude, LibreChat, and Copilot.

Legacy Modernization Self-Service Onboarding Agentic Workflows Agile / Scrum
2019 – 2023
Paymerang
Product Owner & Client Account Manager

Built two greenfield fintech SaaS platforms from zero to enterprise scale

Defined product vision and roadmap for invoice automation and purchase order automation platforms serving finance teams. Scaled from 13 to 125 clients across 17 industries. Expanded ERP and payroll/HCM integrations (including Paychex) from 3 to 25+. Led sales enablement and presented at industry conferences.

0→125 Clients 3→25+ ERP Integrations Greenfield SaaS Fintech AP Automation Payroll / HCM 13→125 Clients
2011 – 2019
Allianz Partners
Product Manager & Project Coordinator

Global product leadership across 28 countries — insurance & assistance vertical

Led product for a global insurance and assistance platform — managing CRM modernization, regulatory complexity, and legacy system challenges across 32 offices in 28 countries. Reduced cycle times by 20%, achieved 82% NPS, and directed mid-market and global client implementations across diverse international markets.

28 Countries CRM Modernization 82% NPS 20% Efficiency Gain
Skills & Certifications

Tools, methods &
credentials

AI & Emerging Tech
Agentic AI LLM Training ML Models Claude LibreChat GitHub Copilot VS Code Miro AI Prompt Engineering
Product Leadership
Greenfield Strategy Product Roadmapping Agile / Scrum OKRs Jobs-to-Be-Done User Research Wireframing
Go-to-Market
Sales Enablement CS Enablement Product Marketing Battlecards Demo Strategy White Papers Feature Release Content Technical Writing Conference Presenting
Platforms & Integrations
ERP Integrations CRM Modernization AP/AR Automation Payroll & HCM (Paychex) SaaS API-First Products Miro
Industry Verticals
Fintech AP/AR Automation Insurance & Global Assistance Insurtech Payroll & HCM Enterprise Workflow Automation Implementation & Onboarding Global Operations
✦ Certified 2024
Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner
Scrum Alliance · A-CSPO
✦ Certified 2022
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance · CSM
In Progress
⟳ Expected June 2026
AWS Certified AI Practitioner
Amazon Web Services
Case Studies

How I think, not just
what I shipped

Three real product problems, the decisions behind them, and what I learned along the way.

01
Greenfield · Fintech · 0-to-1
The Blank Whiteboard

Building an invoice automation platform from zero to 125 enterprise clients — what the roadmap decisions looked like when there was no playbook, no precedent, and no room for big mistakes.

Greenfield SaaS AP Automation Fintech 0-to-1
125
Enterprise clients in 2 yrs
→
02
Legacy Modernization · Enterprise · Paychex
Replacing the Unreplaceable

Every enterprise has a system nobody wants to touch. At Paychex, it was a legacy InfoPath platform that had been there for years. Here's how we deprecated it without breaking anything — or anyone.

Legacy Migration Stakeholder Alignment Payroll / HCM Change Management
200+
Specialists migrated
→
03
Agentic AI · Onboarding · Workflow Design
Teaching a Product to Route Itself

What happens when you take a manual, human-coordinated onboarding process and ask: what if the product could make most of these decisions itself? A story about agentic workflow design, responsible prototyping, and knowing when to let humans stay in the loop.

Agentic AI LLM Workflows LibreChat Claude
<2 days
Avg onboarding time
→
Career Timeline

The story behind
the resume

Ten years of building things that scale — animated, annotated, and a little whimsical.

A career built on curiosity
✦ ten years · two continents · one product at a time ✦
Allianz Partners
The World Becomes the Office
Global insurance & assistance across 32 offices in 28 countries. Led CRM modernization and achieved 82% NPS.
28 CountriesInsurance82% NPS
🌍
2011
📄
2019
Paymerang
The Blank Whiteboard Era
No product, no clients, no playbook. Built two greenfield fintech SaaS platforms from zero.
GreenfieldFintechAP Automation
Paymerang · Scale-Up
From 13 to 125 in Two Years
125 enterprise clients across 17 industries. Multimillion-dollar ARR in under 2 years.
17 Industries125 ClientsMulti-M ARR
🚀
2020–21
🔌
2021–23
Paymerang · Expansion
The Integration Marathon
Expanded ERP integrations from 3 to 25+ platforms including Paychex.
3 → 25+ ERPsPaychexGTM
Mindex · Paychex $10B+
Modernizing What's Broken
InfoPath deprecation, onboarding under 2 days, 200+ specialists, agentic AI workflows.
Legacy → ModernAgentic AI
⚙️
2023–26
🤖
2026 →
Howie AI · Now
Inside the Machine
Training LLMs. Auditing outputs. Building datasets that make AI actually trustworthy.
LLM TrainingWhat's Next ✦
Kind Words

What colleagues say about
working together

From the people who've been in the room — on the hard problems, the big launches, and the work that mattered.

Quote coming soon — replacing with a colleague's words about Sarah's greenfield product work and ability to build products from zero.
Colleen Crist
VP of Business Development
Paymerang
Quote coming soon — replacing with a colleague's words about Sarah's sales enablement work and how she equipped teams to sell and service the product.
Leslie Thomason
VP of Client Success
Paymerang
Quote coming soon — replacing with a colleague's words about Sarah's technical thinking, AI product work, or cross-functional collaboration.
Andy Savage
Technology Executive
Capital One
Quote coming soon — replacing with a colleague's words about Sarah's implementation experience and client-facing work.
Kai Evans
Client Success Manager
Paymerang
Quote coming soon — replacing with a colleague's words about Sarah's leadership style, strategic thinking, or product vision.
Jessica Davis
Product Manager
Paymerang
Beyond the Resume

The human behind
the product manager

I believe the best teams are made of interesting, whole humans. Here's a little of who I am outside of work.

✈️
On Travel
What the world has taught me about people
I've built my career around understanding how people work — and travel is where I do my deepest research. A story about what exploring the world has taught me about empathy, design, and human behavior.
Coming soon
🧘
On Wellness
Why I practice yoga and Ayurveda — and what it has to do with product work
Yoga and Ayurveda gave me a framework for balance and listening that shows up everywhere in how I work. A short reflection on slowing down to move faster.
Coming soon
📷
On Photography & Design
How I see the world — and why aesthetics matter in product
Photography taught me to notice things — light, composition, the thing just outside the frame. A visual person's take on why taste matters in product management, and a few images from the road.
Coming soon
🌿
On Nomad Life & Gardening
From everywhere to right here — the philosophy behind thegirlsnomad.com
I've roamed the world and come home to a garden in Colorado. A reflection on rootedness, wandering, and why both make me a better product thinker. Featuring some very enthusiastic tomatoes.
Coming soon
Contact

Let's build something
worth building

I'm currently open to Product Manager and AI Product Manager roles at companies building ambitious things. Available immediately — open to remote, hybrid, or relocation for the right opportunity.

I do my best work on teams that debate ideas openly, care deeply about the humans using the product, and value people as much as they value output. If that sounds like your team, I'd love to talk.

If that sounds like your team, or you just want to connect, I'd love to hear from you.

✉
sarahschmirl@gmail.com
☎
+1 804.925.5730
in
linkedin.com/in/sarah-schmirl
✦
thegirlsnomad.com
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