Product Manager / Former Founder, New Initiative

Cartesia

$130K — $180K *
Information Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Founder experience in B2B SaaS, AI, or developer-tools startups
  • Deep bias for execution and ownership
  • Strong knowledge of AI/ML systems and tradeoffs
  • Comfortable leading customer acquisition and sales
  • Ability to communicate technical concepts effectively
  • Proven cross-functional leadership without formal authority

Responsibilities

  • Own the product initiative's roadmap and execution pace
  • Shape go-to-market strategy with the GTM team
  • Conduct customer discovery and drive early customer acquisition
  • Ensure cross-functional alignment among teams
  • Become a credible external voice for the company through thought leadership

Benefits

  • Competitive base salary with attractive equity package
  • Monthly commuter allowance
  • Flexible PTO for personal time off
  • Daily meals and snacks provided
  • Unique perks, including a personal Yoshi
Full Job Description
About the Role

Cartesia is hiring a Product Manager to lead a new initiative at the company - a 01 product effort building on top of our foundation models. Were looking for someone to operate as the CEO of this initiative.

This is not a traditional PM role. Were looking for someone who has already lived the 01 loop - customer discovery, building, selling - and who can set the pace for a squad of researchers, engineers, designers, and GTM partners. Youll own the initiative end to end and report directly to the Head of Product. Youll be the dedicated PM on this product, with the scope to shape strategy, run discovery, spar with research, and push deals to close alongside GTM.

Your Impact
  • Own the initiatives roadmap, strategy, and execution pace - translate customer evidence into strong, opinionated bets and kill work that isnt worth doing
  • Shape go-to-market alongside the GTM team, from positioning to pricing to which segments we go after first
  • Run customer discovery personally and partner with GTM to close the early wave of customers
  • Drive cross-functional alignment across research, engineering, design, and GTM as a peer - without relying on formal authority
  • Become a credible external voice for Cartesia through writing, talks, and customer-facing thought leadership


What You Bring
  • Founder experience: you have founded (or been founding PM at) a B2B SaaS, AI, or developer-tools startup and personally taken a 01 product into market - living the full loop of customer discovery  building  selling
  • Execution velocity and ownership: a deep bias to ship, comfort with ambiguity, and a track record of setting the pace for the people around you; you treat blockers as personal problems to solve
  • Deep working knowledge of modern AI/ML systems and the tradeoffs that matter in production - or a clear track record of getting to expert-level in a technical domain within weeks
  • Customer-led and sales-comfortable: youve personally driven early customer acquisition at a previous company, can run a discovery call solo, walk a technical buyer through architecture, and push a deal to close alongside GTM
  • Product taste paired with technical depth: you can spar with research and engineering on model behavior, eval design, and architecture, with strong opinions grounded in customer evidence
  • Cross-functional leadership without authority: youve led RD + GTM + design as a founder and can do it again here as a peer; a strong written communicator who produces primers, narratives, and POVs that travel on their own


Nice to Have
  • Already a credible external voice in applied AI - or clearly capable of becoming one and excited to
  • Built a real-time or applied AI product previously
  • Prior PM time at a high-velocity AI lab or infra company (Anthropic, OpenAI, etc.)
  • Technical degree or prior engineering experience


More Details

In-office policy: Were an in-person team based out of offices in US San Francisco, GB London and I Bangalore We love being in the office, hanging out together, and learning from each other every day.

Visa sponsorship: We provide visa sponsorship support and assess each circumstance on a case-by-case basis. However, visa sponsorship is dependent on many factors, including the role you are applying for, and the location you are going to be based, and so we cant always guarantee success. Your Recruiter will work with you to understand your visa sponsorship needs from the first call.

We ship fast. All of our work is novel and cutting edge, and execution speed is paramount. We have a high bar, and we dont sacrifice quality or design along the way.

We support each other. We have an open & inclusive culture thats focused on giving everyone the resources they need to succeed.

Our Benefits

Compensation. Competitive base salary alongside attractive equity package.

🚆 Commuter Allowance. A monthly stipend to help you get to and from the office.

Flexible PTO. Take as much time as you need to recharge your batteries.

🍲 Meals & Snacks. Lunch, dinner and plenty of snacks, provided daily.

🦖 Your own personal Yoshi.

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