The Lead Product Manager owns one area of the FlowFuse product outright and runs it end to end: vision, roadmap, backlog, prioritization, sprint sequencing, refinement, and the GitHub issues engineers build from.
The area of ownership is assigned based on company priorities and can shift over time. It may be Certified Nodes and the protocols that connect customers to their industrial systems (OPC UA, S7, MQTT), the core platform, the infrastructure underneath it, or how FlowFuse applies AI for its users. The shape of the role stays constant regardless of the area: a single owner who lives in their domain and runs it like it's theirs.
This role builds on the Product Manager role. Where the base role defines product strategy across FlowFuse, the Lead Product Manager applies that craft with full ownership of a single area, working hands-on and directly with engineers.
The Lead Product Manager is primarily responsible for:
- Continuous Discovery: Sitting in on sales and customer calls, reviewing call recordings, and talking to users directly to find the problem behind each request. The Lead PM develops deep knowledge of FlowFuse customers and the industrial IoT domain, and keeps that knowledge current.
- Owning the Area Roadmap: Holding the one-to-three-year view for their area and breaking it into work that ships in the current sprint.
- Running the Area Day to Day: Triaging the backlog and incoming ideas, prioritizing, sequencing, and moving work into sprints.
- Writing Exacting Specifications: Producing precise, technical, unambiguous GitHub issues. Engineers should never have to guess what "done" means. There is no PM/designer/engineer trio at FlowFuse; the Lead PM writes the spec and the ticket, and what they write is what gets built.
- Running Refinement with Their Engineering Squad: Arriving prepared, making product calls within their area, and unblocking the team quickly.
- Filtering and Translating Input: Leadership, peers, and active customer deals generate ideas at high volume. The Lead PM absorbs that input, turns it into a clear and sequenced plan, and protects their engineering team's focus.
The Lead Product Manager reports to the Engineering Manager.
The base Product Manager exclusions apply, with the following clarifications:
- People management: The Lead PM leads product decisions and runs refinement for their squad, but does not manage the engineers implementing the work. Building and managing a product team is a potential growth path for this role, not part of the starting scope.
- Technical decisions on how the product is built or architected.
- Effort estimations, the Lead Product Manager provides effort estimation when creating issues. However, the DRI for this process is the CTO.
What the Lead Product Manager brings to the table:
- Bias Toward Action: Moves fast, ships, and shows their work. Prefers making a reversible call today over scheduling a meeting about it next week.
- Proven Craft: Has written real specifications and tickets, owned a backlog, and run refinement with an engineering squad.
- Fast Learner of Hard Domains: Industrial, OT, or protocol experience is a strong plus, not a requirement. A demonstrated track record of going deep on a difficult domain matters more than existing IIoT credentials.
- Fluency with Engineers: Speaks their language, respects their constraints, and makes their work easier. Earning the engineering team's trust is core to the role.
- Sound Judgment Under Pressure: Holds a firm line on guardrails, coaches others toward their best work, and makes hard calls when needed.
- Fluency with AI Tools: Already uses AI tools to draft specifications, prototype, and work faster.
- Comfort with Ambiguity: Thrives in a small, fast-moving startup where priorities shift and the highest-leverage work is sometimes outside the job description.
People management experience is welcome but not required to start.
- Day 30: Knows their area, its backlog, and FlowFuse's biggest customer commitments cold. Fluent in the tools the team runs on (GitHub, Slack, Asana, Claude, Google Workspace). Has sat in on refinements and written tickets to the expected standard. Has met sales and marketing and knows who owns what.
- Day 60: Owns the backlog and near-term roadmap for their area. Has made real prioritization calls and sequenced upcoming sprints. Their engineering squad trusts their tickets. Can name the top reasons deals stall and renewals wobble, and has partnered with marketing on GTM collateral for at least one release.
- Day 90: Has shipped a multi-week effort that solved a real customer problem, and set a roadmap leadership can plan around. Has turned at least one piece of sales or renewal friction into a roadmap response. Is the go-to person across the organization for the state of their area.
The interview process mirrors how FlowFuse hires engineers: it prioritizes demonstrated ability over polished interview answers. Every stage answers one question: can this person independently own a product area at FlowFuse and become a trusted partner to engineering?
- Application Review: Review resumes and the submitted work sample. Candidates submit one real ticket or issue they wrote, exactly as the engineer received it, plus two or three sentences on why they picked it, weighted toward what they would do differently now. Done by the hiring manager.
- Screening Call (20m): Initial screener focused on role fit, motivation, remote and async experience, current AI workflow, and alignment with how FlowFuse works. Conducted by the hiring manager or People Ops.
- Hiring Manager Interview (45m): A deeper conversation covering past product work, product judgment, and a realistic FlowFuse scenario. This stage gates for core product management craft: ownership, prioritization, discovery, and the ability to protect engineering focus. Conducted by the hiring manager.
- Skills Assessment (45m): The candidate's submitted ticket anchors the conversation, including refinement-style pushback of the kind engineers raise every day, followed by a shared FlowFuse product scenario given to every candidate for comparability. The discussion focuses on day-to-day working style, decision-making under pressure, and how the candidate interacts with engineering, rather than grading the artifact itself. Conducted by the CTO and a product peer. This stage also indicates what level the candidate would suit.
- STAR Interview (45m): A behavioral interview to understand past experiences and assess alignment with FlowFuse's values, initiative, and collaboration style. Conducted by the CEO.
- Team Interview (45m): Conversation focused on team collaboration, communication style, and culture fit. Conducted by two team members not already in the interview loop, who complete a scorecard and are expected to raise concerns.
- Offer: Extend an offer to the selected candidate.
