Principal Product Manager

Couchbase, Inc.

23h • $169,000 - $199,000 • Remote

About The Position

Couchbase is seeking a Principal Product Manager, AI to lead a significant area of their AI portfolio, encompassing both Capella and Couchbase Enterprise. This role involves end-to-end ownership, from strategy and roadmap development to execution, launch, and post-launch iteration. The Principal PM will work closely with engineering, sales, GTM, marketing, and the broader AI organization to deliver capabilities that address the needs of their enterprise Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). This is a hands-on individual contributor position requiring the ability to write PRFAQs, engage directly with customers, make critical tradeoff decisions, and present the roadmap to leadership and industry analysts. The role is central to a major shift in enterprise data infrastructure and requires a proactive approach to product management, including driving AI-driven product management practices.

Requirements

• Twelve or more years in product management, with at least five on a technical platform (database, data infrastructure, developer tools, or AI infrastructure).
• Deep technical fluency in modern AI infrastructure: vector search, embeddings, RAG, agent frameworks, model serving, context engineering, and emerging interoperability standards. Ability to discuss architecture with engineering.
• Customer obsession and working-backwards rigor: Starting with the customer, writing PRFAQs before code, and discerning universal ICP needs from noise.
• Engineering credibility: Ability to hold own on architecture, be decisive on scope, and own the 'why' behind tradeoffs.
• Cross-functional trust: Building durable working relationships with sales, GTM, and marketing.
• Exemplary AI-driven PM practice: Heavy use of AI in PM work with concrete examples, setting an example for the team.
• Deep frontier-model experience: Advanced, hands-on experience building with frontier AI models (APIs, code-generation tools, MCP, agent frameworks, modern developer ecosystems). Strong familiarity with Anthropic's Claude stack is preferred.
• Strong written communication skills, producing PRFAQs and PRDs that align the team.
• A shipping record: Products and features personally taken from PRFAQ to launch to adoption, ideally including one that opened a new revenue line.

Nice To Haves

• Experience at a database, data platform, or AI infrastructure company (e.g., MongoDB, Snowflake, Databricks, Elastic, Confluent, Redis, Pinecone, AWS, GCP, Azure, or comparable).
• Direct experience building or shipping vector search, agent memory, RAG pipelines, model serving, or related AI infrastructure capabilities.
• Public presence: blog posts, conference talks, OSS contributions, or analyst-facing work.
• Prior experience mentoring or developing other PMs.

Responsibilities

• Product strategy and execution across an AI portfolio area: End-to-end ownership of a meaningful area within the AI portfolio, including strategy, roadmap, PRFAQs and PRDs, launch, adoption, and iteration.
• Working backwards from the customer: Starting with the customer, writing PRFAQs before code, validating with enterprise customers, and making crisp tradeoff calls based on ICP needs.
• Engineering partnership: Collaborating closely with engineering, being technically credible, decisive on scope, and clear on the 'why'. Owning the PRD as a living document and ensuring quality, scope, and timing through to launch.
• Customer and design partner engagement: Running design partner programs, incorporating customer voice into roadmap decisions, and building a pipeline of named reference customers.
• Cross-portfolio collaboration and build-vs-partner judgment: Coordinating with other product teams (Core Database, Capella, Analytics, Mobile and Edge, AI Specialist) to ensure AI capabilities function as a unified platform, and making deliberate build-vs-partner decisions.
• Sales and GTM partnership: Equipping sales, sales engineering, PMM, and partner GTM with necessary information like positioning, demos, competitive context, and customer proof points. Acting as the product owner in technically deep deals.
• External voice and analyst credibility: Contributing to analyst engagements (Gartner, Forrester, IDC), customer briefings, keynote content, partner co-marketing, blog posts, and documentation.
• AI-driven PM practice: Utilizing AI extensively in product management work (research, PRFAQ drafting, customer synthesis, competitive analysis, roadmap modeling, engineering collaboration) and setting an example for the team.
• PM team development: Mentoring and coaching Senior and other PMs, contributing to interview loops, calibration, and onboarding, and helping shape the team's operating cadence, standards, and culture.

Benefits

• Generous Time Off Program
• Wellness Benefits (medical, dental, vision, life insurance, employee assistance programs)
• Financial Planning (retirement program, Business Travel Insurance)
• Career Growth opportunities
• Ergonomic and comfortable in-office / WFH setup
• Food & Snacks for in-office employees

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal
• Education Level: No Education Listed