Product Manager - DroneStack

Responsibilities

• Own product strategy for DroneStack. Define the roadmap that transitions the team from program-driven deliveries to a scalable, multi-customer product line. Make hard prioritization calls across ISR, strike, hardware, and tooling.
• Become the voice of the operator. Conduct primary user research — in the field, at bases, and with international partners — to deeply understand how operators plan, execute, and debrief autonomous missions. Travel up to 20% of the time, including internationally.
• Drive the programs-to-products transition. Identify the patterns across current customer engagements and define the abstractions, configurations, and interfaces that turn one-off solutions into repeatable products.
• Shape product design and experience. Work with engineering to design operator interfaces (mission control, mission planning, mission review) that are intuitive enough for non-technical users to operate without engineering support in the field.
• Set the technical direction with engineering. Partner with the engineering manager and technical leads to balance near-term delivery commitments with long-term product architecture.
• Build and communicate a market thesis. Develop a point of view on where the autonomous drone market is heading — across DoD service branches, allied nations, and commercial applications — and position Applied Intuition to capture it.
• Represent the product internally and externally. Be the connective tissue between DroneStack engineering, Applied Intuition's defense business development team, and customers. Present at demos, program reviews, and industry events.

Requirements

• 5–7 years of product management experience across at least two meaningfully different environments (different industries, product types, company stages, or customer segments).
• A track record of shipping products, not just features. Owned a product end-to-end — from research and strategy through design, build, launch, and iteration.
• Exceptional research instincts. Learned a market from scratch: talking to users, studying workflows, reading doctrine, attending field exercises, and synthesizing into actionable product direction.
• Comfort with deep technical systems (hardware + software, real-time systems, developer tools, infrastructure, etc.).
• Strong design sensibility. Collaborated closely with designers or driven UX decisions for workflow-heavy or operations-focused tools.
• Clear, structured communication. Write crisp product briefs, present strategies, run design reviews.
• BS/BA degree in a technical or analytical field (Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, Mathematics, Economics, or similar).

Nice to Have

• Experience with defense or government customers.
• Experience working on products that span hardware and software.
• Prior work at an early-stage or high-growth company.
• Exposure to international markets or customers.
• Experience founding a company or leading a 0-to-1 product initiative.

Compensation

Base salary range: $150,000 - $220,000 USD annually (plus equity and benefits).