Product Manager

Arcessio•Oakland, CA

10d

About The Position

Arcessio is seeking its first dedicated product hire: a hands-on product leader who can identify customer problems, validate solutions with AI-native tools, translate concepts into clear engineering work, and focus the team on shipping intuitive products that deliver customer and business outcomes. The role initially operates as a senior individual contributor and reports to the Chief Product & Technology Officer, with the opportunity to shape and build the product and design function as the company grows. The position combines customer discovery, UX design, and product management. It involves working closely with mechanical and manufacturing engineers and understanding how physical products move from design through manufacturing and sourcing. Candidates with experience in hardware, robotics, autonomous systems, drones, automotive, industrial automation, advanced manufacturing, CAD/CAE/PLM, or other physical-AI environments are particularly relevant. The Product Manager will lead discovery, own the end-to-end user experience, prototype and validate ideas, define the roadmap and product requirements, and partner with engineering through QA and launch. The role also owns product outcomes across activation, engagement, retention, customer value, and revenue, while reconciling priorities among PLG users, enterprise customers, DoD programs, suppliers, and engineering.

Requirements

7+ years across product management, product design, engineering, or a combination of these disciplines, including meaningful early-stage or 0→1 experience.
Track record of taking products from ambiguous customer problems through to shipped solutions.
Strong affinity for physical-product development and experience relevant to engineering or manufacturing environments.
Strong design skills, including taking a product from a blank canvas through information architecture, user flows, and high-fidelity screens, and explaining the reasoning behind design choices.
Strong customer discovery skills, including personally conducting interviews, listening effectively, separating stated requests from underlying needs, and being comfortable with onsite visits.
Sound product judgment to reconcile customer needs, technical constraints, and business goals and prioritize effectively.
Fluency with AI-native prototyping and development tools and a habit of quickly adopting better tools.
Technical fluency to collaborate closely with engineers, understand APIs, integrations, data flows, and implementation tradeoffs, and create engineering-ready requirements.
Self-directed, low-ego working style; ability to move quickly with incomplete information, communicate clearly, and close loops.
Curiosity about how products are designed and made and willingness to learn about engineering choices involving materials, geometry, tolerances, and processes.

Nice To Haves

A degree in Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Product Design, Robotics, or a related technical discipline; the posting states this is highly valued but not required.
Hands-on experience building, testing, manufacturing, or shipping physical products as an alternative to a related degree.
Experience with mechanical engineers or products in robotics, autonomous systems, drones, automotive, industrial equipment, hardware, manufacturing, CAD/CAE/PLM, or related engineering fields.
Familiarity with agentic products, AI-assisted workflows, human-in-the-loop systems, or AI evaluation.
Experience as an early product hire or founder at a robotics, autonomy, drone, hardware, industrial, or physical-AI company.
Experience working on CAD, PLM, simulation, manufacturing, engineering, or technical workflow software.
Meaningful time with engineers in labs, factories, field environments, or customer sites.
A mechanical engineering background, or experience beginning as a mechanical engineer and moving into product.

Responsibilities

Conduct customer interviews and site visits with mechanical and manufacturing engineers to understand workflows from design through manufacturing and sourcing.
Understand the reasoning behind engineering decisions, including geometry, tolerances, materials, process selection, cost, lead time, quality, and production constraints.
Translate customer workflows, pain points, and unmet needs into product opportunities and priorities.
Establish a continuous customer discovery practice and develop domain understanding of how engineers work.
Own the end-to-end user experience, including information architecture, user flows, wireframes, high-fidelity screens, and functional prototypes.
Design agentic, AI-first experiences for complex manufacturing and engineering decisions, with minimal training or support needs.
Design for trust by making recommendations and uncertainty understandable and identifying where human judgment should remain involved.
Set and maintain standards for usability and visual quality as the product and team grow.
Prototype and validate solutions using AI-native tools before committing substantial engineering time.
Translate validated concepts into a roadmap, product requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, and engineering tickets.
Partner with engineering from product definition through QA and launch; make tradeoffs and keep delivery on track.
Own product outcomes across activation, engagement, retention, customer value, and revenue impact.
Own roadmap decisions, priorities, and the rationale for what is built or deferred.
Reconcile priorities across PLG users, enterprise customers, DoD programs, suppliers, and engineering.
Distinguish customer-specific requests from scalable capabilities for the core platform.
Help establish a faster, AI-native product development model.