Principal Product Manager

Piaggio Fast Forward • Boston, MA

4d • Onsite

About The Position

Boston-based company Piaggio Fast Forward Inc. (PFF) was founded in 2015 by the Piaggio Group (the Italian manufacturer that created the iconic Vespa scooter). We are on a mission to build technology products that move the way that people move. To bring products to market today, PFF is solving the problem of robotic interaction with people in dynamically changing environments. We’re innovators, neighbors, and creators with a passion for local living and pushing the limits on urban transportation. We support a sustainable mobility ecology with healthy lifestyles and social connectivity available to all, regardless of age or abilities.

We're looking for a Product Manager to own product strategy and priorities across PFF's full technology stack: software, AI/perception models, and hardware; as it shows up across our industrial and consumer robot lines, our motorcycle safety modules, and the cloud-based tools and apps that connect to our products.

This is a senior individual-contributor role, not a people-management role. You'll report directly to the CEO and work closely with the C-level leadership team, but you won't have direct reports. Your leverage comes from the clarity of your product thinking, the strength of your relationships across the company (especially with Sales, Design, and Program Management), and your ability to turn market and customer signal into a prioritized, well-argued roadmap.

Requirements

• 7+ years of product management experience, with a track record of owning roadmaps that span hardware and software (experience with embedded/robotics products strongly preferred).
• Demonstrated experience working directly with executive leadership and translating company strategy into product priorities, ideally in a role with significant autonomy and cross-functional scope.
• Direct experience partnering with sales or customer-facing teams to convert customer and market feedback into roadmap decisions.
• A genuine point of view on simplicity in product design that you can speak to where you fought for a simpler solution over a more complex one, and why it was the right call.
• Comfort operating alongside a Program Manager or similar execution owner, with a clear understanding of (and respect for) the boundary between setting priorities and managing execution.
• Familiarity with, or strong interest in, sensor fusion, perception, and navigation technologies.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills. This role will regularly represent product strategy to the CEO, leadership team, customers, and Board of Directors.
• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree in a technical field a plus.

Responsibilities

• Set product strategy and priorities across a diverse technology stack. Define and maintain the product vision, priorities, and roadmap across our core technology stack: software, AI/perception models (including radar-based sensor fusion); and the physical and digital product lines built on top of it (including industrial robots, consumer robots, motorcycle safety modules, and the cloud-based tools and apps that support them).
• Partner closely with Sales on the commercial edge of the roadmap. Work hand-in-hand with the business sales team to understand existing customer needs, deployment feedback, and emerging opportunities to expand adoption of our core technology stack, then translating what you learn into concrete product priorities and business cases.
• Own the roadmap for cloud-based tools and apps. Define the features and priorities for the cloud software and companion apps connected to our robots, ensuring they extend the value of the hardware by simplifying their operation by our customers.
• Own the motorcycle safety module line as a product category. Work with our customers and their desires and requirements as well as benchmarking our competitors to build a strong point of view on values to riders of features for our RAS modules alongside our robot product lines.
• Champion simplicity as a product principle. Work closely with the Design team and bring a genuine, lived understanding that simplicity is harder to achieve than complexity; and that it's a discipline, not a default. You'll be expected to advocate for the value to customers of simplicity and intuitive ease of use in every product decision, and to hold the line on that standard even under schedule or feature pressure.
• Set goals and priorities and hand off execution cleanly to Program Management. Work in close partnership with the Program Manager who owns execution: the tracking, sequencing, and day-to-day interaction with Engineering and Operations required to deliver on both new development and support of existing products and features. You are responsible for what and why; the Program Manager is responsible for how and when. Maintain a thin, well-understood boundary between the two: you set clear, well-reasoned priorities and goals and you trust the Program Manager to socialize and align those goals with Engineering and Operations to get the work done. Stay close enough to unblock and clarify intent, without duplicating the Program Manager's tracking and execution role.
• Operate as a peer to the C-suite. Represent product thinking in leadership discussions, bring outside-in market and customer perspective to company strategy, and make the tradeoffs between hardware, software, and AI investment explicit and defensible.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior