Director of Product

Hivemind Capital Partners•New York, NY

9d•$175,000 - $190,000

About The Position

Lightyear is seeking a commercially minded Director of Product to own the end-to-end product and go-to-market function. The role focuses on the product roadmap, product-market fit, methodology definition, design-partner development, and the technical sale across data subscribers and financial institutions. The Director will shape what Lightyear builds and for whom, working with data and engineering teams to define index methodology, conducting design-partner research, translating buyer needs into product requirements, and supporting sales conversations through technical demonstrations and customer engagement. The Director will lead product and methodology decisions from MVP through the index family; define monetizable products and their build sequence; shape what is published, licensed, or reserved; and develop both agent-native distribution and human-facing terminal and API products. Commercial responsibilities include running research and design-partner programs, building the early commercial motion, developing pricing and packaging, partnering with sales and business development, and supporting the path from indices to financial products. The role also prepares product and commercial reporting for the CEO and group leadership. Lightyear builds data infrastructure, reference indices, and financial products for frontier-technology markets, including compute, energy, and hardware. It is part of the Hivemind group and works alongside Hivemind Capital's asset-management platform.

Requirements

At least 5 years of professional experience in product management, data/fintech commercial roles, or related fields.
Experience owning a data or SaaS product end-to-end at an early stage, from definition through go-to-market.
Strong commercial instincts and ability to run a technical sale and translate buyer needs into product and methodology decisions.
Background in or strong working knowledge of data products, indices, benchmarks, market data, or financial data.
Ability to communicate complex technical products clearly to non-technical buyers.
Commercial judgment and product rigor.
Ability to thrive in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial environment.
Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.

Nice To Haves

Experience at a data, market-data, fintech, or developer-infrastructure company.
Familiarity with AI/ML infrastructure economics, including inference, compute, and model pricing.
Experience defining or working with methodology-driven products such as indices, benchmarks, or pricing references.
Comfort engaging financial-institution counterparties such as funds, RIAs, structurers, or exchanges, and understanding how data becomes a financial product.
Experience running customer research, design-partner programs, or 0-to-1 commercial motions.
Willingness to develop deep domain fluency quickly.
Ambition to grow into broader product or commercial leadership over time.

Responsibilities

Own the product roadmap and define product-market fit from MVP through the index family.
Work with data and engineering teams to define and defend index methodology, including measurement, weighting, normalization, and chain-linking.
Translate buyer pain and research findings into product requirements, feature decisions, and methodology constraints.
Define monetizable mini-products, including observability, procurement/routing, and the evaluation harness, and prioritize their build sequence.
Define the distinction between the flagship index and sub-index family, and decide what is published free, licensed, or reserved.
Define the agent-native product surface, including MCP and micropayment distribution, alongside the human-facing terminal and API.
Run the design-partner research sprint and rank monetizable demand across buyers, supply-side participants, and financial stakeholders.
Lead the technical and domain portion of sales conversations, demo the product, and engage FinOps leads, AI engineers, quant funds, and structurers on methodology and value.
Build the early commercial motion, including pipeline, pilot conversion, pricing hypotheses, and progression from free benchmarks to paid data and index licensing.
Partner with the existing sales and business development function, owning the technical close and translating customer needs into product decisions.
Develop pricing and packaging across terminal/API subscriptions, underlying data licensing, agent micropayments, and index licensing for financial products.
Support the path from indices to passive products and address governance and neutrality requirements for broad index licensing.
Prepare decision-useful product and commercial reporting for the CEO and group leadership, including product-market-fit signals, design-partner status, pipeline, and go/no-go evidence.