Product Manager for AI Startup

About Makai

Makai uses best-in-class AI and data to solve real-world operational and strategic challenges at scale. We help businesses with enterprise automation, human-machine teaming, product design and development, and market intelligence. Until now, people have had to learn and adapt to software. Makai creates solutions that adapt to people because technology will never be 100% accurate. People are essential for all of our human-machine teaming solutions.

About the role

Makai Labs is looking for a Product Manager to lead the innovation and development of our first go-to-market product. We are looking for a passionate, strategic and experienced product manager who is not afraid to roll up their sleeves and dive into solving complex challenges to directly impact business outcomes with efficient yet elegant AI solutions. You will work closely with a talented team of engineers and UX/UI designers to drive strategic product planning and execution. The right candidate will own the development of Makai’s products, manage various backlog items and determine the priority of feature implementation for products, based on external inputs.

The ideal candidate will be able to

• Collaborate with prospective users and clients to understand and anticipate their needs and translate them into product requirements

• Help define the vision for the team’s product and execute on that vision

• Quickly spin up on new domains of knowledge and work through complex problems

• Complete in-depth discovery for clients to learn their business, uncover opportunities for automation and document and present the findings

• Leverage new and emerging technologies to achieve business outcomes

• Demonstrate strong leadership skills and clearly articulate strategy, priorities, and objectives

• Achieve results through measurable KPIs

• Galvanize and align cross-functional peers including development, design, and operations

• Adapt to change based on learnings

• Navigate and be comfortable in a fast-paced start-up environment

Responsibilities

• Take over the current state of Makai’s product development and run with it with the goal of getting our first product to market

• Partner with cross-functional peers and stakeholders to identify and document product’s user needs and use cases

• Define product roadmap(s) based on business needs or challenges

• Manage the product backlog and prioritize tasks based on changing requirements

• Oversee all stages of product creation including close collaboration with design and development teams

• Develop user stories

• Write and maintain product specifications

• Monitor and evaluate product progress at each stage of the process

• Oversee product analytics to understand feature usage, comprehension, and optimization

• Coordinate with the product team and end-users to deliver updates

• Participate in Scrum meetings and product sprints

• Partner with UX team to perform user research and testing sessions and align on goals and analyze resulting learnings

• Track and stay up-to-date with industry trends and new technologies to inform product strategy

• Rapidly drive innovation through data

Qualifications

• 5+ years of product management or product development experience

• Track record of building high-impact and effective solutions that drive business value

• Experience with creating product development architecture and principles

• Knowledge of Scrum and Agile Software Development Methodology

• Impeccable communication skills

• Customer-centric mindset and an ability to translate customer needs into the product development process

• Track record of implementing data-driven processes to turn a vision into an actionable roadmap

• Deep curiosity and enthusiasm to learn

• Passion for following industry trends and new technologies and applying them to operational problems

Nice-to-haves

• Experience with SaaS, AI, or ML

• Experience with product marketing and crafting go-to-market strategies

Core values for Makai employees

• Be a flexible, innovative and creative thinker

• Be congenial and a team player

• Be self-sufficient

• Be self-driven with an ownership mentality

• Have a strong work ethic

Benefits

• Remote role, Eastern time zone

• Opportunities to work in-person with local colleagues

• Generous PTO

• Flexible work schedule

• Free health insurance

• 401(k) matching

• Career growth & development opportunities