Technical Product Manager, EXAScaler Engineering

This is an incredible opportunity to be part of a company that has been at the forefront of AI and high-performance data storage innovation for over two decades. DataDirect Networks (DDN) is a global market leader renowned for powering many of the world's most demanding AI data centers, in industries ranging from life sciences and healthcare to financial services, autonomous cars, Government, academia, research and manufacturing.

"DDN's A3I solutions are transforming the landscape of AI infrastructure." - IDC

"The real differentiator is DDN. I never hesitate to recommend DDN. DDN is the de facto name for AI Storage in high performance environments" - Marc Hamilton, VP, Solutions Architecture & Engineering | NVIDIA

DDN is the global leader in AI and multi-cloud data management at scale. Our cutting-edge data intelligence platform is designed to accelerate AI workloads, enabling organizations to extract maximum value from their data. With a proven track record of performance, reliability, and scalability, DDN empowers businesses to tackle the most challenging AI and data-intensive workloads with confidence.

Our success is driven by our unwavering commitment to innovation, customer-centricity, and a team of passionate professionals who bring their expertise and dedication to every project. This is a chance to make a significant impact at a company that is shaping the future of AI and data management.

Our commitment to innovation, customer success, and market leadership makes this an exciting and rewarding role for a driven professional looking to make a lasting impact in the world of AI and data storage.

We are seeking a Technical Product Manager to join the EXA Engineering team. This role will be critical in driving product vision, roadmap, and execution for the Exascaler platform. The ideal candidate will bridge the gap between engineering, customers, and sales by understanding technical requirements, prioritizing features, and ensuring timely product delivery. This role is based in the Bay Area, California.

Key Responsibilities:

Define and execute the product roadmap for Exascaler in alignment with customer needs and company goals.
• Collaborate closely with engineering teams to drive product development, ensuring timely and high-quality releases.
• Gather and prioritize customer requirements, translating them into detailed product specifications.
• Engage through various phases of development as required, from concept to release. This includes prototyping, scoping, product definition creation, testing, benchmarking using both synthetic and real-application workload.
• Work with sales, marketing, and support teams to ensure product success, including competitive positioning and go-to-market strategies.
• Act as the voice of the customer within the engineering organization.
• Analyze market trends and competitor products to identify opportunities and risks.
• Manage beta programs, customer feedback loops, and product launch activities.
• Support engineering leadership in scoping new features, deployment, and upgrade paths.

Qualifications:

• 10+ years of Product Management, Systems Engineering or Solutions Architect experience in enterprise software, storage solutions, or cloud infrastructure.
• Significant practical experience working with parallel file systems (preferably Lustre), high-performance networking architectures with technologies such as RoCE or Infiniband, and large-scale data storage architectures.
• Proven experience working with engineering teams in an Agile environment.
• Strong technical, analytical and problem-solving skills with a data-driven mindset.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to balance technical depth with customer-centric priorities.
• Experience with deployment models, including on-premises, hybrid, and cloud.
• Product Management, Systems Engineering, Solutions Architect experience is very relevant
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field; MBA is a plus.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with open-source software communities and contribution processes.
• Familiarity with performance tuning and optimization in storage systems
• Operational experience with infrastructure observability platforms such as Prometheus, OpenTelemetry.
• Knowledge of AI/ML workloads and their impact on storage performance.
• Experience with container technologies like Docker and orchestration platforms like Kubernetes

This position requires participation in an on-call rotation to provide after-hours support as needed. Travel will be required at times for important customer and engineering engagements.

Pay range: $150,000 - $190,000

Join our dynamic and driven team, where engineering excellence is at the heart of everything we do. We seek individuals who love to challenge themselves and are fueled by curiosity. Here, you'll have the opportunity to work across various areas of the company, thanks to our flat organizational structure that encourages hands-on involvement and direct contributions to our mission. Leadership is earned by those who take initiative and consistently deliver outstanding results, both in their work ethic and deliverables, making strong prioritization skills essential. Additionally, we value strong communication skills in all our engineers and researchers, as they are crucial for the success of our teams and the company as a whole.

Interview Process: After submitting your application, one of our recruiters will review your resume. If your application passes this stage, you will be invited to a 30-minute interview during which a member of our team will ask some basic questions. If you clear the interview, you will enter the main process, which can consist of up to four interviews in total:

• Coding assessment: Often in a language of your choice.
• Systems design: Translate high-level requirements into a scalable, fault-tolerant service (depending on role).
• Real-time problem-solving: Demonstrate practical skills in a live problem-solving session.
• Meet and greet with the wider team.
• Our goal is to finish the main process in 2-3 weeks at most.

DataDirect Networks (DDN) is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender, sex stereotyping, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, protected Veteran Status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

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