Director of Product Operations

Deepgram•,

1d•$280,000 - $310,000

About The Position

Product Operations is the connective tissue of our product organization. As Director of Product Operations, you own the systems, cadences, and analysis that let product, engineering, program management, GTM, finance, and executive leadership operate off a single, trusted picture of what we are building, when it ships, and what it is worth. This is a high-visibility role with broad surface area. You will run the new product introduction (NPI) process end to end, keep product deliverables on track across a distributed set of teams, quantify the revenue impact of roadmap decisions, coordinate deliverables owed to and from our partners, and prepare the material that leadership uses to steer the business. You will spend as much time building durable process and instrumentation as you do driving individual launches. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable running a cross-functional launch gate review, modeling ARR impact in a spreadsheet, and writing the one-page summary an executive reads before a board meeting.

Requirements

AI-first mindset—AI use and comfort aren’t optional, they’re core to how we operate, innovate, and measure performance.
Actively use and experiment with advanced AI tools, and even build your own into your everyday work.
Comfortable adopting new models and modes quickly, integrating AI into their workflows, and continuously pushing the boundaries of what these technologies can do.
Comfortable running a cross-functional launch gate review, modeling ARR impact in a spreadsheet, and writing the one-page summary an executive reads before a board meeting.

Nice To Haves

Candidates should be comfortable adopting new models and modes quickly, integrating AI into their workflows, and continuously pushing the boundaries of what these technologies can do.
This may not be the right role if you’re not excited to experiment, adapt, think on your feet, and learn constantly, or if you’re seeking something highly prescriptive with a traditional 9-to-5.

Responsibilities

Maintain a single source of truth for product commitments, milestones, dependencies, and status across all product lines
Drive accountability for deliverables across product management, engineering, design, docs, support, and GTM — surfacing risk early rather than reporting it late
Establish and enforce lightweight standards for PRDs, roadmap artifacts, release readiness, and launch documentation
Identify and remove chronic sources of friction and rework in how the product organization plans and ships
Own the end-to-end NPI process: stage gates, entry and exit criteria, readiness checklists, and go/no-go decision forums
Chair launch readiness reviews and hold cross-functional owners to gate criteria across engineering, security, support, pricing, legal, marketing, and sales enablement
Coordinate beta and early access programs, including participant selection, feedback capture, and exit criteria for GA
Run post-launch retrospectives and drive the resulting process improvements into the next cycle
Continuously improve NPI for speed and predictability — the process should scale with the company, not slow it down
Partner closely with Program Management to align the product roadmap with engineering delivery plans, release trains, and capacity
Reconcile roadmap commitments against actual delivery, and maintain a clear, honest view of schedule confidence
Establish shared dependency tracking and escalation paths across product and engineering programs
Ensure planning inputs — sizing, sequencing, staffing assumptions — are consistent between product plans and program plans
Build and maintain models that quantify the revenue impact of roadmap decisions: ARR opportunity, expansion and retention effects, competitive displacement, and pipeline influence
Partner with Finance on product P&L inputs, cost-to-serve, pricing and packaging analysis, and business case development for major investments
Support annual and quarterly planning with scenario analysis and resource allocation recommendations grounded in expected return
Track realized outcomes against the business cases used to justify investment, and close the loop with leadership on what actually delivered
Establish and maintain the product metrics framework — adoption, usage, attach, retention — and connect it to financial outcomes
Coordinate deliverables owed to and from technology, ISV, channel, and strategic partners, including integration milestones, certification requirements, and co-launch commitments
Track partner-facing roadmap commitments and ensure internal delivery plans reflect them
Serve as the operational interface between the partner/BD organization and product and engineering teams
Prepare partner-facing roadmap materials and support joint planning and QBR cycles
Partner with product marketing on launch tiering, messaging inputs, positioning reviews, and launch calendar sequencing across the portfolio
Ensure roadmap and launch timing are reflected in demand gen, campaign, and event planning, and that marketing has the technical substance it needs early enough to build against
Coordinate analyst relations and competitive inputs back into roadmap and business case work
Maintain visibility into customer-facing roadmap commitments — what has been promised, to whom, by when, and whether an internal owner and delivery plan exist behind it
Run the intake and triage process for feature requests, roadmap exceptions, and custom commitments tied to key pipeline opportunities, routing them to the right product owner and escalating to product and sales leadership when a decision is needed
Flag commitments that are unbacked, at risk, or in conflict with the roadmap early enough for leadership to act, and track each one through to a decision
Work with sales leadership to understand top pipeline deals and at-risk renewals, and translate deal-blocking product gaps into prioritized, quantified roadmap input
Support strategic customer engagements: executive briefings, roadmap sessions under NDA, and design partner arrangements
Partner with sales enablement to ensure the field is trained and equipped ahead of every launch, and that release readiness includes GTM readiness
Establish a standing channel with Support and CS to surface escalation themes, defect trends, and top customer pain points into product prioritization
Participate in escalation review for critical customer issues, ensuring product and engineering ownership is clear and resolution is tracked to closure
Track support-driven signals — ticket volume, deflection, time-to-resolution, escalation frequency — as inputs to roadmap and quality investment decisions
Ensure support readiness (documentation, runbooks, staffing, tooling) is an enforced NPI gate criterion rather than an afterthought
Close the loop with CS on adoption and health data for newly launched capabilities
Own the weekly business review (WBR): agenda, data preparation, metric integrity, follow-ups, and closure on action items
Prepare executive and board-level materials on product performance, roadmap status, launch readiness, and investment returns
Support quarterly business reviews, planning cycles, and OKR setting and tracking for the product organization
Act as a trusted advisor and force multiplier to the product leadership team — anticipating what leadership will need to decide and having the analysis ready before it is asked for
Drive clarity and follow-through on cross-functional decisions and escalations