Senior Product Manager, Platform Engineering

Appian•McLean, VA

12h•Onsite

About The Position

Appian is seeking a Senior Product Manager, Platform Engineering to focus on strengthening our self-managed distribution of Appian. This role involves analyzing customer use cases, prioritizing feature delivery, and driving the adoption of Appian on Kubernetes. You will be responsible for the product direction and roadmap of Appian on Kubernetes, ensuring high-performance operations for customers managing their own environments. This position requires a strong connection with customers, comfortable engaging with both technical IT staff and executives. You will leverage your experience with Kubernetes to explain Appian on Kubernetes' adherence to cloud-native principles and enterprise-grade requirements. Your domain knowledge will be crucial for analyzing customer use cases and enhancement requests for the product backlog. This role is based at our headquarters in McLean, Virginia, and requires employees to be in the office 5 days a week to foster a culture of in-person collaboration, shared ideas, and teamwork.

Requirements

5+ years of experience in Product Management or Software Engineering within an enterprise software organization.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
Experience managing products supporting both SaaS and customer-managed deployments.
Strong understanding of cloud-native technologies and Kubernetes.
Experience working with containerized applications throughout the deployment and operational lifecycle.
Knowledge of enterprise infrastructure concepts including scalability, availability, resiliency, and security.
Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical concepts for both technical and executive audiences.
Experience partnering directly with enterprise customers to influence product strategy.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Kubernetes platforms such as Amazon EKS, Azure AKS, Google GKE, Red Hat OpenShift, Rancher, or VMware Kubernetes Service.
Experience building or supporting Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs).
Familiarity with software deployments in denied, degraded, intermittent, and limited (DDIL) environments.
Understanding of enterprise data sovereignty and regulatory requirements, including frameworks such as DORA.
Experience supporting customers in highly regulated industries, including government, financial services, healthcare, or life sciences.

Responsibilities

Define and execute the product roadmap for Appian on Kubernetes.
Prioritize product investments based on customer feedback, business impact, and technical strategy.
Partner closely with Engineering to define requirements, refine backlog priorities, and guide implementation.
Collaborate with architects and engineers to design scalable, cloud-native platform capabilities.
Establish clear product boundaries between customer-managed infrastructure and Appian-managed functionality.
Write detailed product requirements and specifications for engineering teams.
Track feature adoption and success through customer feedback, product metrics, and usage analytics.
Own the product lifecycle from ideation through documentation, launch, and ongoing enhancements.
Partner with Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success to support go-to-market initiatives and product positioning.
Build strong relationships with enterprise customers to understand complex deployment challenges and influence future product direction.