Zachary Covan

About Zachary Covan

I build, debug, and ship complex systems.My background spans support, QA engineering, and digital product management across hardware and software ecosystems. I’ve worked inside 3D printing labs, elite digital product teams, and large enterprise banking platforms — partnering directly with engineers to turn ambiguous requirements into working systems.What I’m best at:• Diagnosing production issues across distributed systems• Bridging technical and non-technical teams• Synthesizing messy requirements into structured specifications• Learning unfamiliar architecture quickly and driving resolution• Operating comfortably in high-stakes, regulated environmentsAt American Express, I’ve led platform integrations and customer-facing system launches (including a direct integration with Early Warning Services for Zelle), owned investigation of executive escalations, and reduced technical debt by improving schemas, payload handling, and cross-system dependencies.More recently, I’ve been involved in AI enablement initiatives focused on applying LLMs and agentic workflows to accelerate product development processes and improve operational efficiency.Outside of work, I explore LLM agents and systems thinking hands-on — from building productivity workflows to applying CFD-guided analysis to hardware modifications on my motorcycle.I’m particularly interested in roles that sit at the intersection of:AI systemsRobotics / hardwareField systems engineeringTechnical product or integration leadershipI thrive closest to the system — debugging, shaping, and improving how things actually work.

Experience

1. Product Manager - Digital Banking Platforms

   American Express

   Jun 2022 — Present · New York, NY, US

   Led direct integration with Early Warning Services (Zelle), partnering with engineering and risk teams to design secure, compliant money movement capabilities across multiple enterprise systems.• Investigate and resolve production incidents and executive escalations by rapidly learning unfamiliar technical architecture, tracing cross-system dependencies, and synthesizing findings into actionable remediation plans.• Lead the solutioning and development of customer communications (email, SMS, push, and paper) for banking products delivered to millions of customers, translating complex regulatory and platform constraints into executable technical specifications.• Partner directly with engineers and solutions architects to define system behavior, manage API dependencies, improve schema integrity, and reduce technical debt across interconnected services.• Contribute to AI enablement efforts within Product Development, applying LLM-assisted workflows to accelerate requirements authoring, validation, and documentation processes while defining metrics to measure productivity gains.

Education

• Product School

  Sr Product Manager Certification (SMPC), Product Management

• University of Florida

  Psychology

  2004 — 2008

• Full Sail University

  Bachelor of Science (BS), Recording Arts Technology/Technician

  2008 — 2010

Skills

• Product Development
• Test Cases
• Customer Relationship Management (Crm)
• Linux
• Windows
• Apple Computers
• Crm
• Employee Training
• Daw
• Audio Post Production
• Microsoft Office
• Sales
• Composure
• Logic
• Audio Editing
• Management
• Computers
• Apple Aperture
• Apple Certified
• Customer Service
• Audio Engineering
• Technical Support
• Sound Editing
• Black Box Testing
• Dealing with Ambiguity
• Learning on the Fly
• Keynote
• Ios
• Ios Devices
• Social Media
• Jira
• Organization
• Mac
• Ipod
• Iwork
• Ilife
• Executing Test Cases
• Teaching
• Os X
• Product Visualisation