Product Manager

Responsibilities

• Own the product vision, strategy, and roadmap for DefenseOS, adapting Applied's commercial VehicleOS into a navy warship operating system for unmanned surface vessels and traditional surface combatants.
• Lead customer and user discovery with Navy program offices, operators, and crews to translate operational needs, acquisition requirements, and field constraints into a prioritized product roadmap.
• Define product strategy for zonal architecture (location-based zone controllers and centralized compute replacing federated, domain-based design), including integration with legacy defense-unique systems (combat, communications, HM&E subsystems) built by primes lacking modern software and data interfaces.
• Write clear requirements, define success metrics, and make prioritization and scope trade-offs to focus engineering on highest-value work.
• Partner closely with engineering, hardware/integration, design, and operations to sequence delivery across simulation, integration lab, and live-platform testing.
• Own trade-offs between speed, quality, and scope under acquisition and field constraints.
• Work with design to shape operator interfaces and workflows grounded in actual crew operations.
• Partner with defense customers and shipbuilders/integrators, translating needs into the roadmap.
• Communicate product strategy, status, risk, and trade-offs to senior leadership and external stakeholders; provide product input into program and business decisions.
• Build feedback loops from usage signals, customer input, and program data to justify investment and shape the roadmap.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in a technical field (Computer Science, Engineering, or related) or equivalent experience; advanced degree or deep technical background a plus.
• 8+ years of product management experience shipping complex technical products, including owning a product line end to end (ideally platforms spanning hardware and software, real-time/embedded, or systems-of-systems).
• Demonstrated ability to own a product end to end as an individual contributor: vision, roadmap, requirements, prioritization, launch, and iteration against measurable outcomes.
• Thrives as an IC, driving cross-functional outcomes through influence rather than managing direct reports.
• Strong technical literacy to engage credibly with engineers on architecture trade-offs (e.g., zonal vs. federated domain architectures, hardware/software integration, interfaces and data flow) and make informed scope decisions.
• Experience defining product strategy for integrating with legacy, proprietary, or closed third-party systems lacking modern software and data interfaces.
• Skilled at customer and user discovery: translating ambiguous operational problems into clear, prioritized requirements.
• Comfort in a fast-paced, highly ambiguous environment; ability to make and defend trade-offs between speed, quality, and scope.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including clear status, risk, and decision communication to senior leadership.
• US citizenship required; must already hold, or be eligible to receive, an active US Top Secret security clearance upon onboarding.

Nice-to-Haves

• Product management (or equivalent) experience on software-defined vehicles or analogous platforms where zonal architecture and centralized compute replaced distributed, domain-based controllers.
• Familiarity with naval/maritime subsystems (combat, C5I, HM&E), DoD acquisition and requirements processes, and delivery in regulated environments (RMF/ATO, IL5/IL6); prior naval or operational experience a plus.