Principal Product Manager

Principal Product Manager at SambaNova (San Jose, CA, onsite) to lead the model and capability roadmap from strategy through execution as a technical product owner and model subject-matter expert.

Responsibilities

• Own the unified, weighted stack rank of candidate models across customer demand, capability, market adoption, recency, strategic value, and engineering effort
• Tune the prioritization rubric, maintain documented overrides, and run the regular prioritization review
• Own the plan spanning models × hardware generation × configuration × performance targets, grounded in measured platform data rather than estimates
• Convert priorities into dated engineering commitments, track delivery, and run model launches with Marketing, Docs, and GTM
• Maintain the model roadmap and dashboard as the source of truth for executives, account teams, and customers
• Define what a fully featured model means across speed, efficiency, model infrastructure, cloud, and API capabilities (including tool calling, JSON schema, constrained decoding, reasoning controls, full context length, prompt caching, speculative decoding, streaming, logprobs, and API compatibility such as OpenAI Chat, OpenAI Responses, and Anthropic)
• Identify capability and conformance gaps using testing and telemetry, prioritize them, and drive closure with engineering
• Partner with QA and Solutions to set acceptance criteria and required evals before a launch
• Continuously evaluate newly landed models through real prompts, agentic tasks, and feature checks to determine what works, what does not, and where gaps exist
• Spot where SambaNova’s speed and efficiency create a competitive advantage and support the position with evidence
• Create quick demos, prototypes, and product mock-ups (for example a small app, notebook, or UI) to clarify value for leadership, GTM, and customers; hand off strongest ideas to Solutions Engineering for productionization
• Feed findings into the stack rank, feature bar, and launch messaging so roadmap decisions reflect first-hand experience plus data
• Track the open-weight model landscape (new releases and architectures such as MoE, MLA, and GQA) using benchmark and usage signals from sources including Artificial Analysis, OpenRouter, and Hugging Face
• Ingest customer and field input via Model Feedback, triage requests, close the loop with requesters, and ensure demand is reflected in the rank
• Compare models, speed, and features against GPU clouds and other inference providers, translating insights into roadmap and messaging
• Improve the roadmap process and its data pipeline (including Jira, internal platform APIs, and public signals) to keep outputs trustworthy, auditable, and increasingly automated

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Engineering, Machine Learning, or a related technical field
• 7+ years combined experience in product management and technical roles (ML engineering, solutions engineering, research), including 3+ years as a PM on AI/ML, developer, or infrastructure products
• Strong working knowledge of LLMs: transformer and MoE architectures, inference trade-offs (latency, throughput, context, quantization), and features such as function calling, structured output, and reasoning
• Track record of owning a roadmap and shipping, including prioritization under constraints, data-driven trade-offs, and cross-functional launch leadership
• Comfort with data, including building/maintaining prioritization models, dashboards, and scorecards, plus hands-on ability to query an API or modify a Python script
• Hands-on with models: comfortable calling model APIs, running evals and quick experiments, and building simple prototypes or mock-ups (Python, notebooks, or lightweight UI tools, including AI coding assistants)
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including presenting and defending roadmap trade-offs to executives, engineers, and customers

Technologies

• Python
• Jira
• OpenAI Chat
• OpenAI Responses
• Anthropic
• MoE, MLA, GQA
• vLLM, SGLang
• TensorRT-LLM
• Hugging Face
• OpenRouter
• Artificial Analysis
• JSON schema
• OpenAI-compatible APIs
• Anthropic-compatible APIs

Preferred Qualifications

• Product experience at an inference provider, model lab, AI cloud, or AI hardware company
• Hands-on familiarity with inference stacks (vLLM, SGLang, TensorRT-LLM) and OpenAI/Anthropic-compatible APIs
• Experience designing evals and benchmark methodology for model quality and feature conformance
• Background as an ML or solutions engineer before moving into product
• Experience with enterprise, sovereign AI, or public-sector customers
• Active presence in the open-source model community

Benefits

• Competitive total rewards package including base salary, equity, and benefits
• Medical insurance: covers 95% premium coverage for employee medical insurance
• Medical insurance: covers 77% premium coverage for dependents
• Health Savings Account (HSA) with employer contribution
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Short/Long term Disability insurance
• Basic Life, Voluntary Life, and AD&D insurance plans
• Flexible Spending Account (FSA) options like Health Care, Limited Purpose, and Dependent Care
• Well-being benefits including a full subscription to Headspace
• Gympass+ membership with access to physical gyms
• One Medical membership
• Counseling services with an Employee Assistance Program

What Success Looks Like

• First 90 days: take ownership of the stack rank, per-chip roadmap, and feature framework; run the prioritization review; get hands-on with the current top-ranked models; publish a roadmap that GTM and engineering both sign up to
• 6 months: measurable cut in time-to-model for priority models; clear visibility into capability gaps for every launched model; every customer request tracked and answered
• 12 months: the model roadmap is seen as SambaNova’s strategic advantage: predictable launches, fully featured models, and a roadmap the field sells against

Submission Guidelines

Please note that in order to be considered an applicant for any position at SambaNova Systems, you must submit an application form for each position for which you believe you are qualified.

EEO Policy

SambaNova Systems is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard basis of age (40 and over), color, disability, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, national origin/ancestry, race, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding), sexual orientation, and any other applicable status protected by federal, state, or local laws.