[Hiring] Portfolio Product Manager @Plan Left

Role Description

We are hiring a product manager who can lead people and also do the hands-on product work themselves. You will own quality and direction for new products across a portfolio of companies. About 5 hours per week goes to helping our digital marketing agency with technical needs. The work happens in TypeScript and JavaScript stacks, with AWS and mobile app releases as regular parts of the week. This role fits a highly capable person who is equally comfortable managing a remote team and testing a build on their own phone.

What You Will Do

• Make Sure Stakeholders Never Find a Bug:
  • Test all work before it reaches a stakeholder.
  • Write test cases from the acceptance criteria.
  • Test on web and on real iOS and Android devices.
  • Sign off on each release only when it holds up.
• Product Ownership:
  • Own product management end to end for new features and emerging products.
  • Bridge the gap between raw business ideas and technical engineering specs.
  • Write the acceptance criteria and keep each backlog in priority order.
  • Manage App Store and Google Play submissions, review responses, and release schedules for mobile apps.
• Rapid AI Prototyping and Development:
  • Direct AI-assisted workflows to spin up and validate feature prototypes quickly.
  • Orchestrate the handoff to full engineering production.
  • Decide when a product has outgrown its starter platform and needs to move to our own codebase and AWS setup.
• Hands-on Architecture and Code Review:
  • Perform technical reviews and diagnose build bottlenecks.
  • Directly program code overrides or refinements when AI generation tools hit their limits.
• Team Leadership and Construction:
  • Help hire, structure, and scale our internal development organization.
  • Mentor and train remote development teams.
  • Set high technical standards and lead code reviews.
  • Write job descriptions and screen and interview developers and testers.
• Interview Stakeholders and the Team:
  • Talk regularly with stakeholders to learn their needs.
  • Communicate with developers to understand where they are stuck.
  • Turn feedback into clear backlog items.
• Support the Agency (About 5 Hours per Week):
  • Handle the agency's technical needs, including AWS accounts, hosting, access, software costs, and the technical side of client projects.

Requirements

• Proven Engineering Leadership: 5+ years of experience managing remote software engineering teams, running agile sprint cycles, and actively driving hiring strategies or organization building.
• Deep Coding Expertise: 10+ years of hands-on full-stack development experience (React, TypeScript, Node.js, and Supabase/PostgreSQL).
• AI-Augmented Workflow Competency: Active, practical experience using AI code creation or agentic tools to speed up application prototyping and delivery workflows.
• Product Mindset: Strong UI/UX awareness, product intuition, and the ability to think like a tech founder.
• Communication: Exceptional English communication skills, written and verbal.
• A Tester's Eye: Ability to find bugs and document reproduction steps for developers.
• Spec and Backlog Skills: Ability to turn a rough product idea into a clear spec and a prioritized backlog.
• Platform Familiarity: Experience with AWS and mobile app submission processes.
• Industry Experience: Experience working on SaaS or marketing technology products.
• Cross-Platform Mobile: Familiarity with React Native, Capacitor, or similar technologies.
• Startup Technical Leadership: Experience as a fractional CTO, agency tech lead, or startup technical founder.
• AI Builder Handoffs: Experience moving a product from an AI app builder into a production codebase.
• Marketing Technology: Familiarity with analytics, tag management, and CRM integrations.

Nice to Have

• A deep background in marketing and sales.

Hours and Language

• Fluent English, spoken and written, is required.
• Work a combination of US and overseas hours to overlap with US stakeholders and developers in other time zones.

How We Work

• Carry out direction without needing a manager to check on you.
• Learn from the first mistake and do not need to be told the same thing twice.
• Communicate any potential deadline slips before the deadline date.
• Give and receive constructive feedback.
• Communicate directly with people instead of about them, acting with honesty and integrity.
• Be accountable for results and commitments from start to finish.
• Be coachable, asking for feedback and adapting based on it.

How the Role Grows

• Start by taking ownership of quality and backlogs for our newest products, plus about 5 hours per week for the agency.
• As products mature, take on more product ownership.
• Spend more time setting direction, building the team, and deciding what ships as we hire.