Product Manager

About this role

Understand What Is Possible, And Turn It Into Requirements

• Spend the bulk of your time with engineering: understanding architectures, constraints, and dependencies well enough to judge what is realistically doable in a given timeframe
• Translate strategic direction into clear requirements and use cases that engineering can act on directly, and follow them down to the Jira tickets
• Surface and shape the good ideas that come from engineering — many of the best ones do — and connect them to a product rationale
• Define success criteria for each capability, and verify they are actually met through implementation and delivery
• Maintain an accurate, shared view of Loft's product capabilities, what is in development, and where the gaps are

Bring the outside in

• Run customer discovery interviews alongside business development, and debrief missions to see how Loft's capabilities are actually used in operations
• Engage directly with the partners building on our platform, including the onboard AI application ecosystem, to understand their needs and constraints
• Track market trends and competitive moves closely enough to know where our offering stands

Decide and prioritize

• Own the roadmap for your perimeter, reconciling customer needs, engineering reality, and Loft's strategy into a single coherent plan
• Build the analysis behind every recommendation — sizing, segmentation, business cases, operational data — so decisions are grounded in evidence rather than intuition alone
• Negotiate scope and delivery commitments with engineering leadership, and re-plan when capacity or mission timelines shift
• Challenge, constructively and with data, business development, engineering leadership, and your own assumptions

Communicate

• Own internal communication on your perimeter: keep engineering, program leadership, and executives working from the same technical reality
• Develop the technical narratives and proof points that marketing and BD then turn into their own customer-facing material
• Prepare recommendations and presentations for top-executive-level audiences

Must Haves

• 7+ years of professional experience, including hands-on product management
• Domain experience in at least one of: earth observation, embedded systems, aerospace systems, security & defense
• Comfort at both ends of the spectrum — understand the market, and the technology
• Structured and data-driven: you bring your experience and your intuitions, but when you put a recommendation on the table you can show the analysis it stands on
• Real product obsession: you think about the bigger picture and product-market fit before you think about features
• Relentless curiosity. In a single month you might move from a satellite bus constraint, to onboard AI inference, to a defense accreditation requirement — and you need to find that stimulating rather than exhausting
• High autonomy and a bias for action: handed a broad perimeter, you organize it yourself and come back with a plan
• At ease being challenged, and challenging others, in a fast-moving and demanding environment
• Working knowledge of both hardware and software development lifecycles
• Proficient using and configuring Atlassian tools (Jira and Confluence)
• Fluency in English, written and spoken
• Willingness to travel to other Loft offices and to customers

Nice to Haves

• Fluency in French
• Experience with AI/ML products, edge computing, or developer and partner platforms and ecosystems
• Experience with satellite operations, constellation services, or ground segment products
• Exposure to institutional and defense customers and their procurement cycles
• Experience in a fast-growing, entrepreneurial NewSpace company or venture-backed deep-tech startup
• Professional experience working with international teams across time zones

Benefits

• 100% company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance option for employees and dependents
• Flexible Spending (FSA) and Health Savings (HSA) Accounts offered with an employer contribution to the HSA
• 100% employer paid Life, AD&D, Short-Term, and Long-Term Disability insurance
• Flexible Time Off policy for vacation and sick leave, and 12 paid holidays
• 401(k) plan and equity options
• Daily catered lunches and snacks
• International exposure to our team in France
• Fully paid parental leave; 14 weeks for primary caregiver and 10 weeks for secondary caregiver
• Carrot Fertility provides comprehensive, inclusive fertility healthcare and family-forming benefits with financial support
• Off-sites and many social events and celebrations
• Relocation assistance when applicable

Pay

Base compensation range for this role is $160,000–$190,000 per year, determined by your education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities.