Director, Product Management

Cockroach Labs•San Mateo, CA

18h•$270,000 - $358,200•Hybrid

About The Position

Cockroach Labs is a category-defining tech company that makes it easier for companies to build and scale applications. This role is for a senior product leader who owns end-to-end user journeys across Cockroach Labs’ Products. This is a player-coach role, responsible for setting the standard for Product Management craft and building/developing a high-performing team of Product Managers. The ideal candidate will have deep customer obsession, strategic clarity, and a relentless drive to improve user outcomes throughout the developer lifecycle, operating with an AI-first mindset. They should lead with evidence, listen with empathy, and create clarity for teams to move fast with purpose.

Requirements

8-12+ years of experience in Product Management
3-5+ years in leadership roles managing PMs
Proven experience in database, infrastructure, developer tools, cloud infrastructure, or distributed systems products
Track record of elevating PM craft and team output
Deep fluency in user journey thinking — owning end-to-end experiences across multiple surfaces (UI, CLI/API, Docs)
Strong evidence-based decision-making (telemetry, NPS, RICE, customer research)
Excellent written communication skills
Demonstrated ability to drive cross-functional alignment through influence, data, and clarity
An AI-first mindset: in how you think about product experiences and how you operate day-to-day
Experience working in a SaaS, enterprise software, or open-core business model preferred

Responsibilities

Own the product strategy and portfolio of investments across user journeys, making explicit tradeoffs across user segments, product surfaces, and time horizons, while balancing investments across different deployment options.
Define success metrics including a North Star metric and leading/lagging indicators that reflect real user progress.
Develop and manage a team of Product Managers (Staff PMs and/or Senior PMs), focusing on their development, accountability, and craft.
Conduct deep customer and journey discovery through qualitative and quantitative methods.
Create clear, concise Outcome Briefs (3 pages or less) focused on WHAT, WHY, and WHO.
Maintain a living (now/next/later) roadmap that reflects reality, tradeoffs, and strategic focus.
Manage the PM operating rhythm for the area, including weekly triads, biweekly roadmap syncs, monthly insights reviews, and quarterly planning and reflection.
Define a clear product vision and translate it into a 12-month strategy and 90-day outcome bets.
Drive evidence-based prioritization using frameworks like RICE and customer signals.
Balance short-term fixes with long-term bets, ensuring the team works on the highest-leverage problems.
Partner with Engineering on feasibility and tradeoffs, owning the WHAT and WHY.
Establish an ongoing rhythm of customer engagement (calls, support ticket review, field shadowing, journey shadowing).
Define Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) and user personas.
Use AI to synthesize qualitative feedback, support tickets, and telemetry at scale.
Maintain a product backlog grounded in validated, quantified pain points.
Mentor and develop PM talent, elevating consistency of craft, accountability, and outcomes.
Foster a culture of curiosity, continuous learning, and customer-first thinking.
Set the standard for great PM work, including Outcome Briefs, roadmaps, and insights.
Drive alignment across Engineering, Design, Docs, Field, and GTM.
Partner with PMM and GTM to craft compelling launch narratives and post-launch success stories.
Influence through data, clarity, and narrative.
Identify opportunities to embed AI across user journeys.
Define AI Evals and measurable AI metrics for every AI-powered feature.
Embed AI tools in the team's day-to-day workflows.