Senior Product Manager

Job Purpose/Summary
The Product Manager (PM) owns the business and customer-facing product vision for Knowmadics' 360 Space platform, an API-first, cloud-native data platform for telemetry data ingest, entity and track management, data retrieval and delivery, and domain awareness capabilities through a user-centered front-end. Space and satellite data is the first domain the platform supports; the Product Manager is responsible for identifying the standardized, domain-agnostic core of the platform and extending it to additional domains. This role is the primary link between the market (Sales, Business Development, prospective and current customers) and the product roadmap: understanding who will buy and use 360 Space capabilities, validating product-market fit, and translating that understanding into clear, prioritized product direction.
This role owns overall product priorities and is accountable for the unified product vision and roadmap for our telemetry data platform technologies and product portfolio, beginning with the Space domain, and delivers on that by working hand-in-hand with the Engineering/Tech Lead, Human-Machine Interface (HMI) Lead, and Project Manager as trusted peers, each bringing deep expertise in their own domain. The Product Manager is expected to actively synthesize business, technical, and user-experience perspectives into a single, well-communicated direction, and to keep the broader team aligned and motivated around it. The Product Manager will work closely with the Project Manager, who governs schedule and budget constraints and decisions, to keep product development on track and within budget. This role carries the flexibility to absorb related product scope over time, including additional data domains and AI/ML-enabled features, as Knowmadics' product portfolio matures.
What this Role Owns: Product Vision Roadmap, Product-Market Fit Analysis, Product Scope and Priorities (e.g., Functional Requirements, User Stories), Domain Expansion Strategy (identifying the standardized core platform vs. domain-specific needs, External Customer and User Engagement Strategy, Internal Cross-Team Stakeholder (e.g., Sales, Marketing, Business Development, C-Suite) Communications.
What the Technical Lead Owns: Engineering Implementation Strategy and Prioritization, Technical Architecture Decisions, Development Sequencing, Resource (Staff, Data, Equipment) Requirements and Priorities.
What the Project Manager Owns: Funded R&D milestone and deliverable tracking and prioritization, subcontractor management, external (e.g., US Government) R&D sponsor / stakeholder management, product development schedule tracking and adjustments (e.g., push release to accommodate new feature or hold release to hit deadline), product budget tracking and adjustments.
Duties and Responsibilities
Product Vision, Market Fit & Go-to-Market
Partner directly and regularly with Sales and Business Development to understand customer needs, active pursuits, competitive positioning, and the broader space domain awareness market and other domains with similar telemetry data challenges.
Own and continuously refine the product vision and business case for 360 Space, translating customer conversations, market signals, and sales pursuits into clear product direction.
Assess and track product-market fit; identify who the near-term and eventual buyers and users of 360 Space capabilities are, across current and target domains, and shape the value proposition, positioning, and packaging needed to reach them.
Define the standardized, domain-agnostic core of the platform (e.g., data upload and ingest, entity and track management, data retrieval and packaging, and the user-centered front end) versus what is domain-specific, and use it to identify, prioritize, and validate expansion into additional domains.
Contribute go-to-market thinking (e.g., pricing, packaging, and licensing considerations) as the offering matures, in partnership with Sales/BD leadership.
Lead or support product briefings and demonstrations for prospective customers, industry partners, and internal leadership; bring customer and market feedback back into the roadmap.
Cross-Functional Product Leadership
Set and communicate product priorities and roadmap sequencing, synthesizing input from Sales/BD, the Engineering Tech Lead, the HMI Lead, and government/operational stakeholders into one coherent direction.
Help keep the team aligned and motivated around a shared product vision, ensuring business priorities, technical constraints, and user needs are all visibly reflected in the roadmap.
Serve as the “Product” function within the team's Product & Engineering working process: owning requirement briefs and business priority inputs that HMI finalizes into functional specifications.
Collaborate with the Engineering Tech Lead and HMI Lead on key decisions, including risks and trade-offs, respecting each other's ownership areas.
Product Management & Execution
Maintain the product roadmap and requirement briefs, including business priority, go-to-market strategy, target populations, and success signals.
Use structured prioritization (e.g., RICE scoring) to sequence roadmap investments, balancing market opportunity, contract commitments, and engineering capacity.
Maintain roadmap and backlog artifacts in Jira and Confluence and lead the team's regular planning cadences (product planning, demo reviews, allocation planning).
Coordinate with Project Managers on contract sponsor engagement, reporting cadences, delivery milestones, overall schedule, and budget.
Participate in field tests, demonstrations, and customer evaluations; incorporate feedback into roadmap and prioritization decisions.
Vertical Expertise & Portfolio Breadth
Maintain working knowledge of telemetry data ingest and management, the space domain and others to be served, and the 360 Space platform's core capabilities sufficient to represent business and customer priorities credibly in architecture and design discussions.
Be able to flex into adjacent scope, such as additional domains, core platform/data initiatives and AI/ML-enabled capabilities, as the broader Knowmadics product portfolio evolves.
Stay current on the product market, competitive landscape, and customer/mission trends to keep positioning and roadmap decisions grounded in reality.
Qualifications
Eligible to obtain a U.S. Security Clearance; active clearance strongly preferred. Per the U.S. Government’s eligibility requirements, you must be a U.S Citizen to be considered for a security clearance.
Bachelor's degree in a technical, business, or related field with experience in product management, product marketing, or business development, and meaningful exposure to defense, intelligence, space, or other mission-critical technology markets
8+ years of professional experience, (or 5+ years with relevant advanced degree) including demonstrated ownership of a major initiative, product line, or research domain.
Demonstrated record of framing real-world problems and driving them to a decision.
Demonstrated record of mentoring practitioners and raising the standard of a discipline.
Demonstrated ability to lead technical and user discussions directly with operational and government stakeholders.
Experience delivering under shifting requirements in an applied research or government program environment.
Demonstrated success partnering with Sales/Business Development and customers to shape product direction, including experience assessing product-market fit for an early-stage product line.
Demonstrated success launching a product; taking a capability from concept through to market or customer availability with citable post-launch success metrics.
Comfortable operating as a peer among multiple functional leads, synthesizing differing viewpoints (business, technical, user experience) into a single, well-communicated direction. A true team-player.
Strong communication and briefing skills; able to translate fluidly between customer/business language and technical/engineering conversations.
Working familiarity with agile/hybrid delivery models and tools such as Jira and Confluence.
Working knowledge of telemetry and sensor data platforms, AI/ML concepts, or space domain awareness technology sufficient to engage credibly with technical stakeholders (this role is not expected to design technical solutions).
Preferred Experience
Experience evolving a platform or data product from a single initial use case or domain to multiple domains, including separating reusable core capabilities from domain-specific needs.
Experience in a growth-stage or dual-use product organization moving from R&D/prototype toward a repeatable, sellable product.
Experience positioning or selling defense, intelligence, or space technology products to government and/or commercial customers.
Experience with classified or military operational environments and with achieving accreditation in them.
Familiarity with government acquisition processes and contract structures (e.g., SOW, CDRLs, CLINs).
Deep domain expertise in decision support, human-autonomy teaming, AI trust calibration, geospatial or space applications, or C4ISR p

Work arrangement
Yes