Product Expert – Customs and Entry Management

Altana•Washington, DC

8d•$200,000 - $250,000

About The Position

Altana is the network for trusted trade, empowering a new era of global commerce by uniting businesses and governments on an AI-powered platform to build a more resilient and secure global supply chain. Enterprises like Boston Scientific, General Atomics, and L.L.Bean use Altana to map and manage their multi-tier value chains. Logistics leaders like UPS and Maersk use Altana to help customers reduce risk and prevent delays. And governments across the U.S. and its allies use Altana to prevent supply chain disruptions and protect national security. Altana's Product Passports represent a fundamentally different model: one where enterprises proactively share structured, verified supply chain data with their brokers and government regulators — not in response to a request, but as a foundation for trust. Imagine a world where an importer's HTS classifications, valuation methodologies, supplier relationships, and country-of-origin evidence are continuously maintained and mutually visible — so that when a shipment arrives, the question isn't "prove it" but "confirmed." Where a CF-28 becomes a conversation between parties who already share context, not a scramble to reconstruct a paper trail. Where trusted traders earn expedited treatment not because they filled out a form once, but because their supply chain data speaks for itself, continuously. As a Product Expert for Customs & Entry Management, you will be the domain authority who helps Altana build this future. You've lived the current world as a licensed customs broker — filing entries, managing post-entry audits, responding to CF-28s and CF-29s, and hunting for every compliant dollar of duty savings on behalf of your clients. You know exactly where the system breaks down. Now you're ready to stop working around those limitations and build the solution. You will work at the intersection of deep customs expertise, product strategy, and modern AI tooling — translating what you know about how trade compliance actually works into product experiences that feel like a revelation to the brokers, importers, and trade teams who use them every day.

Requirements

You know customs from the inside. You have held a U.S. Customs Broker License and spent at least 5 years in the trenches — filing entries, managing complex audits, responding to CF-28s and CF-29s, and advising importers on how to structure transactions to minimize duty liability compliantly. You've read a commercial invoice and immediately spotted a dutiable assist or a misapplied incoterm.
You're a systems thinker. You don't just know the rules — you understand why the system works the way it does, where it breaks down, and what a genuinely better version would look like. You're frustrated by friction that has been normalized and energized by the opportunity to fix it at scale.
You're tech-enabled and AI-curious. You don't need to write code, but you're comfortable talking to engineers about data structures and API design. You use AI tools actively in your own work — to draft, prototype, analyze, and explain. You're excited about what automation and machine learning make possible in trade compliance, and you know enough about the domain to separate real opportunity from hype.
You communicate with clarity and conviction. You can explain a complex valuation methodology to an engineer who has never filed an entry, and explain an API integration to a broker who has never written a line of code. You write clearly, prototype quickly, and bring people along.
You're a builder, not just an advisor. You're ready to move from identifying problems to owning their solution. You want your fingerprints on a product that changes how customs compliance works — not just a deck that describes it.
Active U.S. Customs Broker License (required)
5+ years of hands-on customs brokerage or trade compliance experience, including entry filing, post-entry work, and importer audit support
Familiarity with ACE, broker management platforms, and EDI/ABI filing infrastructure
Working knowledge of customs valuation (transaction value, non-dutiable deductions, assists, related-party adjustments), HTS classification, and rules of origin

Nice To Haves

Experience with C-TPAT, trade agreement programs (USMCA, GSP), or other trusted trader / duty preference programs is a plus
Prior product management, business analysis, or trade technology experience is a strong plus — but domain depth is the priority

Responsibilities

Reimagine the Broker-Importer-Government Relationship
Define how brokers participate in the Product Passport ecosystem: contributing validated entry data, maintaining classification and valuation histories, and building a shared evidentiary record that makes post-entry scrutiny faster and less disruptive for everyone.
Design the workflows that allow trusted traders and their brokers to proactively share supply chain visibility with CBP — so that expedited clearance is earned through transparency, not just paperwork.
Define the Future of Entry Management
Own the product vision for customs entry workflows — from pre-arrival classification and valuation through post-entry amendment, protest, and audit response.
Identify where manual, error-prone processes (data re-entry, valuation deductions, HTS classification) can be automated, validated, or eliminated entirely.
Build the case — with data, customer evidence, and working prototypes — for prioritizing the problems that matter most.
Move from transactional responsive processes to proactive, continuous compliance.
Turn Customs Expertise into Product Requirements
Translate your firsthand experience with entry filing, prior disclosures, CF-28/CF-29 responses, and reconciliation into concrete product features your engineering partners can build.
Define how Altana captures and applies customs logic to generate entries automatically from commercial documents in the most compliant manner.
Serve as the internal authority on CBP regulations, ACE workflows, and trade agreement rules of origin, keeping product decisions grounded in compliance reality.
Build Collaboratively with AI
Use AI tools to prototype workflows, generate explanations, and rapidly test ideas with customers and engineers alike — before a single line of production code is written.
Think creatively about where AI can eliminate friction in the entry lifecycle: extracting structured data from commercial invoices, flagging valuation discrepancies, recommending HTS codes, or drafting audit responses.
Champion a culture of "show, don't tell" — use demos, mockups, and AI-assisted visualizations to align stakeholders and accelerate decision-making.
Partner Across the Ecosystem
Engage directly with licensed customs brokers, importers, and freight forwarders to deeply understand their workflows, pain points, and workarounds.
Work with government-facing product teams to ensure the importer/broker experience is designed as the complement to CBP's enforcement and facilitation tools.
Collaborate with engineering on API design and data schemas that connect broker platforms, ACE, and Altana's network in ways that feel seamless — not like an integration project.

Benefits

Flexible Time Off: Altana operates with a Flexible Time Off (FTO) policy that gives you agency over your own time off so you can maximize your work-life balance.
Parental Leave: We offer industry leading Paid Parental Leave (PPL), providing 14 weeks of leave for non-birthing, adoptive, and foster parents and up to 26 weeks of leave for birthing parents, all paid at 100% of your base salary.
Health Benefits: We have a full suite of medical, vision, and dental benefits with generous employer contributions, designed to give you flexibility and choice for your individual health situation. Our high deductible health plan is 100% employer paid for employees and supplemented with an employer contribution to your Health Savings Account (HSA). There is also a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) option.
Supplemental Benefits: Altana provides life, short- and long-term disability, and AD&D insurance coverage, all at no cost to you, so you know that you and your loved ones are covered in case of an emergency.
401(k) Savings: Save for and invest in your future using our Guideline 401(k) retirement savings program.
Commuter Benefits: Save money on your commute by setting aside pre-tax funds for public transit or parking!
Wellness: Because we value mental and emotional health, every Altana employee has access to a free premium subscription to Calm, the #1 app for meditation, sleep, and mindfulness.
Pet Insurance: Pets are family too! Keep them healthy with Wishbone insurance and/or our Total Pet vet service and telehealth discount plan.
Employee Assistance Program: Free access to confidential personal support.
Dependent Care FSA: You will have access to a Dependent Care FSA, which allows you to set aside pre-tax funds for childcare expenses.