We are hiring a Forward Deployed AI Product Manager (FDPM) to be the connective tissue between our clients and our engineering teams. This is not a traditional PM role. You will live at the intersection of product strategy, technical delivery, and client partnership-spending meaningful time embedded with global retailers, e-commerce brands, hotel chains, and restaurant operators to deeply understand their workflows, then translating those insights into AI-powered solutions that ship. Think of this as: part Product Manager, part Implementation Consultant, part Pre/Post-Sales Engineer. Whether you have run operations inside a retailer, hotel group, or restaurant brand, implemented enterprise software at an e-commerce, POS, PMS, or loyalty vendor, or advised retail and hospitality clients as a consultant-if you have felt the pull toward product and AI, this role was built for you.

What You'll Do: Client Engagement & Discovery

• Trusted Advisory: Serve as the primary Product point of contact for a portfolio of retail, e-commerce, and hospitality clients, owning relationships across contact center operations, guest experience, digital commerce, IT, and store operations stakeholders, often working alongside C-suite sponsors.
• Workflow Observation: Lead structured discovery engagements-interviews, order journey mapping, queue observation, side-by-sides with agents, and document analysis-to surface automation opportunities and unmet guest, shopper, or operational needs.
• The "Art of the Possible": Connect client operational pain points to Talkdesk AI platform capabilities-while respecting brand voice, consumer privacy, and PCI constraints.

Solution Design & Scoping

• Scope Alignment: Review pre-sales Statements of Work drafted by the Solution Architect to confirm scope, feasibility, and design alignment before signature.
• Workflow Translation: Translate real-world workflows-WISMO (Where Is My Order?), returns, exchanges, loyalty/rewards inquiries, reservation bookings, cancellations, check-in flows, and VIP guest routing-into structured product and configuration requirements with FDEs, Applied ML, and Solution Engineers.
• Specification Ownership: Own the quality and completeness of Autopilot design and specification documents for engineering handoffs, including required brand disclosures, payment verification steps, TCPA consent capture, and agent escalation criteria.
• Success Metrics Definition: Define business KPIs with clients (time-to-value, containment/call deflection, self-service completion rate, first-contact resolution, CSAT/NPS, average handle time, order modification cycle time, cost per contact).
• Scope Discipline: Enforce scope discipline during UAT-route out-of-scope requests to the Sales/Account team to follow formal change order processes.

Pilots, Deployment & Value Delivery

• 01 Executions: Own deployments end-to-end (from pilot kickoff through go-live): manage timelines, stakeholder communication, change management, and the iteration cycle to production-ready deployments.
• Validation & Testing: Generate test criteria from build artifacts and conduct manual validation (e.g., live call testing, messaging flow validation, authentication paths) before approving client UAT.
• Compliance & Security: Partner with client legal, privacy, and security teams to clear control requirements (PCI DSS, TCPA, GDPR/CCPA) gating go-live.
• On-Site Go-Live: Drive client UAT to completion efficiently, including on-site travel for strategic accounts to accelerate testing and fine-tuning.
• Post-Launch Observability: Monitor deployed Autopilots post-launch using observability tooling, evaluating performance and resolving field issues.
• Value Handoff: Ensure clients and Customer Experience Managers (CXMs) can successfully measure business success metrics before handing off ongoing account management.
• ROI Narratives: Document ROI proof points and case-for-scale narratives at go-live to empower CXMs to drive expansion and renewal.

Product Feedback & Roadmap Influence

• Field Insights: Surface reusable patterns and high-priority gaps from retail/hospitality field deployments to the core product roadmap, partnering with engineering and product leadership.
• Scale the Practice: Contribute to internal knowledge bases, playbooks, and templates that systematize the FDPM practice as Talkdesk scales.

Required Qualifications

• Industry Context: 5+ years of experience in retail, e-commerce, or hospitality, with hands-on exposure to customer-facing or back-office operations in one or more domains: Retail & E-Commerce Servicing (orders, returns, exchanges, promotions, loyalty), Hospitality Operations (reservations, guest relations, front desk, concierge), or Restaurant Operations (ordering, delivery support, table management).
• Client Delivery Ownership: Demonstrated experience in a client-facing delivery role-implementation, technical project management, solution consulting, or customer success-where you owned outcomes, not just activities.
• Workflow Mapping: Ability to quickly understand and map complex guest and shopper journeys, then distill them into structured requirements and prioritized problem statements.
• Executive Communication: Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to present to VP/C-suite stakeholders and translate between store/guest operations and technical teams.
• Regulatory & Data Familiarity: Working familiarity with TCPA outbound contact rules, PCI DSS payment handling, consumer data privacy regulations (CCPA, GDPR), and brand compliance guidelines.
• Comfort with Ambiguity: Comfortable operating in whitespace; you default to action and bring structure to uncertainty.
• AI & Agentic Curiosity: Experience with agentic workflows and a strong curiosity about AI and automation; eager to develop deep product fluency in conversational AI for guest and retail experiences.
• Travel: Willingness to travel up to 25-35% to client sites for discovery, UAT, go-live support, and executive meetings.

Preferred Qualifications

• Vendor Experience: Experience at a retail, e-commerce, OMS, POS, PMS, or loyalty technology vendor in a Project Manager, Implementation Consultant, Technical Services, or similar role.
• High-Growth Expertise: Prior experience in a startup or high-growth technology company in a PM, solutions engineering, or FDE-adjacent capacity.
• Contact Center Ecosystems: Familiarity with CCaaS, IVR, or conversational AI, with prior exposure to platforms such as Talkdesk, Genesys, Five9, or similar.
• Integrations & Standards: Understanding of APIs and integrations with retail/hospitality platforms-Shopify, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Magento, SAP, Oracle Commerce, Workday, Opera PMS, Sabre, Amadeus, or major loyalty and POS systems.
• Agile Product Delivery: Experience building or contributing to product roadmaps, writing PRDs, or working in Agile/scrum delivery processes.

Pay Range (Base Pay): $200,000 - $240,000

Other Types of Pay: Based on level and role the employee may be eligible for long term incentives in the form of equity and short term incentives of either bonus or commission.

Health Insurance: Medical, Dental, Vision, Life and Disability Insurance, Employee Assistance Program (EAP).

Retirement Benefits: 401(k) plan

Paid Time Off: Talkdesk offers an uncapped paid time off program for exempt employees and an accrual-based program for non-exempt employees; both are subject to manager approval and consistent with business needs.

Paid Holidays: Talkdesk offers 14 paid holidays each year.

Paid Sick Leave: Exempt employees have uncapped paid time off and non-exempt sick leave follows accrual standards; both are subject to manager approval and consistent with business needs.

Method of Application: Apply online.

Application Window: The application window is expected to close at least 60 days from the posting date. The application was posted on 09/23/2026

Benefits and perks listed above may vary based on the nature of your employment with Talkdesk.



Work Environment and Physical Requirements:

Primarily office-environment work, extended periods of sitting or standing, computer-based work. Limited lifting, and equipment usage limited to computer-related equipment (keyboards, mouse, etc.)