Product Manager

Job Summary

We are seeking a strategic, technically curious, and results-driven Product Manager to own critical initiatives across VIAVI OSP's product lifecycle — from roadmap strategy and market intelligence through new product introduction (NPI) and post-launch performance. You will drive cross-functional alignment across R&D, engineering, manufacturing, sales, and marketing to ensure the right products reach the market on time and on target. You will also play a central role in shaping how our organization adopts AI to accelerate decision-making, streamline workflows, and sharpen our competitive edge.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Product Roadmap Management & Strategy

  • Roadmap Ownership: Own VIAVI’s rolling 3-year product and capability roadmap in collaboration with executive leadership, R&D, engineering, product management, and marketing aligned with VIAVI OSP's strategic objectives and our customers' system integration needs.

  • New Project Initiation: Collaborate with colleagues in Product Management to drive growth in VIAVI SAM leveraging VIAVI’s staged gate process, including initiating business justifications for new Product Development and Technical Development programs.

  • Prioritization & Trade-off Analysis: Facilitate prioritization of roadmap initiatives using market data, competitive intelligence, customer feedback, internal capability assessments, and resource constraints. Present prioritization recommendations to leadership with clear rationale.

  • AI Strategy & Adoption: AI Roadmap: Develop and own an internal AI adoption roadmap for the OSP product management organization identifying high-value use cases, evaluating tools, and setting measurable adoption goals. Pilot & Scale: Lead AI pilot projects within product management and NPI workflows, measure results, and scale successful implementations across teams. Enablement: Serve as the internal champion for AI tools (including Claude and other emerging platforms), providing training, developing best practices, and building organizational fluency.

  • ROI & Measurement: Track and report on AI adoption metrics, time savings, and productivity gains to build the business case for continued investment.

• Market Research & Competitive Intelligence

  • Market Analysis: Conduct and synthesize market research including TAM/SAM sizing, technology trend analysis, and competitive landscape mapping for target sectors.

  • Voice of Customer: Develop and maintain structured voice-of-customer processes to inform roadmap priorities, capability investments, and go-to-market strategy.

  • Competitive Positioning: Monitor competitor product launches, pricing, and capability development to identify threats, gaps, and opportunities for differentiation.

  • Business Development Lead Generation: Propose new market segments for VIAVI SAM expansion and identify appropriate targets in collaboration with VIAVI PLM and marketing team members.

  • Target Engagement: Engage potential customers and collaboration partners through direct outreach and marketing communications channels (including webinars and social media).

  • New Product Introduction: Collaborate with R&D to launch NPI initiatives to support SAM expansion.

• Business Intelligence & Performance Analytics

  • KPI Ownership: Define, build, and maintain dashboards and KPIs to measure product performance, launch effectiveness, and portfolio health.

  • Financial Analysis: Analyze product-line financial performance relative to plan and peer benchmarks; surface insights and recommendations to leadership.

  • Reporting: Prepare and present actionable business intelligence to stakeholders across the VIAVI organization on a regular cadence.

Pre-Requisites / Skills / Experience Requirements

• Required Qualifications:

  • Experience: 2+ years of experience in program management, NPI, or product management, preferably in a manufacturing or software technology environment.

  • Technical Acumen: Strong understanding of the product development lifecycle. Familiarity with thin film optical coatings a plus.

  • Data & Analytics: Proficient in modern data tools and comfortable working across platforms from spreadsheets and BI dashboards to SQL, Python, and AI-assisted analysis. Able to build KPIs, automate reporting, and turn messy data into clear decisions.

  • Cross-functional Leadership: Proven ability to influence across functional teams (Engineering, Sales, Manufacturing) and manage third-party partners.

• Preferred Qualifications:

  • Experience in high-volume hardware product introductions.

  • Programming proficiency in Python or similar scripting language, with the ability to automate workflows, build data pipelines, or develop internal tools that improve team productivity.

  • Familiarity with AI/ML frameworks, APIs, or prompt engineering demonstrated through personal projects, coursework, or professional application.

  • Familiarity with version control (Git) and comfort working in a terminal/CLI environment.