Senior Technical Product Manager

Forterra•Clarksburg, MD

36d•Hybrid

About The Position

Our autonomous vehicle (AV) platform and hardware product ecosystem are delivering real value to real customers today. As a Product team, our mission is to ensure we’re solving the right needs, in the right order, to the right scope. Technical Product Managers (TPMs) play a critical role in translating the broader product vision into actionable roadmaps and high-quality execution within their domains. TPMs are embedded with engineering teams and help ensure their team’s work aligns with real user needs, technical constraints, and company priorities. As the Technical Product Manager on the Edge Compute team, you’ll partner with the engineers building the hardware that makes our autonomous vehicle, edge compute, and tactical communications products possible. You will drive delivery of mission-critical capabilities for operators and warfighters—guiding the design and delivery of hardware that ensures our products provide reliable battlefield effects—often in contested environments. This role requires a seasoned TPM who can operate at multiple levels—zooming out to understand customer goals and roadmap alignment, and zooming in to clarify requirements, review designs, and assess the performance of our product in the field. TPMs are accountable for clarity, progress, and impact. You will own your team’s backlog and roadmap, help define the success metrics, and ensure crossfunctional stakeholders are aligned along the way. You must be proactive, detail-oriented, and fluent in both product thinking and technical execution.

Requirements

Mission-First Mindset - We put the needs of the mission and our customers first and understand that the US and its allies have no preordained right to victory in any future conflict.
Ownership Mentality - We’re looking for owners; those who have a natural bias to assume responsibility, a healthy dose of skepticism, and contribute to a culture of performance.
Technical Aptitude and Intellectual Curiosity - We are first and foremost a technology company, working at the leading edge of capabilities like machine learning, autonomy, distributed networking, and multi-modal sensor fusion.
Structured Thinker and Problem Solver - Leading technical programs requires clear communication and well-thought-out plans. A solution-driven approach, the ability to distill complexity into its essential, digestible components, and the ability to supervise execution are critical to ensure mission success.
360 Degree Leader - We are a non-hierarchical organization with a matrix structure that is dynamic and evolving. We expect you to be self-aware enough to recognize your position of unstated leadership within the company. You should have a demonstrated ability to lead and influence people through both formal and informal constructs and in situations where there is lack of clarity across teams.
5–8+ years of technical product management experience, ideally on defense products.
You’re comfortable operating at both strategic and tactical levels—able to align with business goals and get specific with technical teams.
Strong product instincts—able to connect field needs and platform constraints to tactical engineering priorities.
Experience building complex hardware products that directly support high-performance, high-confidence software.
You’re technical enough to earn the trust of engineers, hold your own in brainstorming sessions, and ensure feasibility.
Deep familiarity with product development in systems with high performance, safety, and robustness requirements.
You communicate clearly across roles—from engineers to executives—and thrive in cross-functional environments.
You are rigorous about execution and care deeply that what is being built works for the user in the real world.
Up to 25% travel may be required to support field testing, customer deployments, and in-person workshops. Preference for hybrid candidates near Forterra’s core offices: Clarksburg, MD; or Arlington, VA.

Nice To Haves

Military background and/or Product Management experience with defense products
Background in autonomy, robotics, or hardware engineering
Experience in fast-paced or startup environments, especially building 0-to-1 products
Familiarity with Agile environments and tools like Jira

Responsibilities

Own the Roadmap for Your Product Area: Define the customer need, value proposition, and success metrics for your product area. Make sure the work being done is the best way to deliver that value.
Drive Alignment: Create user journeys, diagrams, and other artifacts to clarify priorities and align stakeholders internal and external to your team.
Shape Execution: Translate ambiguous goals into clear, prioritized work. Write detailed feature descriptions and acceptance criteria that enable execution.
Prioritize Ruthlessly: Intake and triage product improvements. Balance customer impact, technical effort, and business needs in prioritizing your backlog.
Communicate Proactively: Keep engineering, product leadership, growth, and other stakeholders informed. Share progress, flag issues, and raise tradeoffs early.
Measure Progress and Value: Define KPIs, evaluate work against roadmap goals, and ensure your team is maximizing impact.
Validate Delivery: Work closely with engineering to ensure that what is being built meets the intended scope and quality. Accept completed work based on clear criteria.
Support Agile Rhythm: Supporting as a Product Owner when needed, partnering with Scrum Masters to shape sprint goals and contribute to sprint reviews.
Escalate When Needed: Raise scope or timeline risks to Product Leadership to support decision-making. Champion Your Team: Evangelize successes and ensure the value your team delivers is visible across the organization.

Benefits

Premium Healthcare Benefits: Three plan options, including an HSA-eligible plan, with Forterra covering 80% of the plan premium for you and your dependents.
Basic Life/AD&D, short and long-term disability insurance plans 100% covered by Forterra, plus the option to purchase additional life insurance for you and your dependents.
Extremely generous company holiday calendar including a winter break in December.
Competitive paid time off (PTO) offering 20 days accrued per year.
A minimum of 7 weeks fully paid parental leave for birth/adoption.
A $9k annual tuition reimbursement or professional development stipend.
Fully stocked beverage refrigerators with all the Celsius your little heart desires.
401(k) retirement savings plan, including traditional, Roth 401(k), and after-tax deferral with company match up to 4%.

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