VP, Product Management

Databases are the beating heart of every business in the world.

Cockroach Labs is the creator of CockroachDB, the most highly evolved cloud-native, distributed SQL database on the planet that scales fast, survives anything, and thrives anywhere. We created CockroachDB to unshackle teams from the constraints of their database. Join us on our mission to enable every developer to build world-changing applications!

About the Role

We are looking for a proven VP, Product Management that can create and scale the processes, culture, and organizational structures to turn CockroachDB into a platform that powers the most mission-critical, data-intensive applications of today and tomorrow.

This leader will decidedly transition our product development toward our DBaaS business while understanding how to create powerful and extensible platforms to support our customers that choose to self-host.

This VP will partner with the CPO and founders to develop and execute the product strategy. They will partner with the GTM and finance teams to ensure we hit the right balance between adoption and monetization.

This person will be responsible for all product management teams for the core database and cloud platform. They will ultimately be accountable for the operations of the cloud product and partner with the Growth leader to enable high-velocity sales and expansions.

You Will

• Refine and run the "operating system" for the product management team.
• Evaluate the success of the Product Management team in achieving its goals specifically supporting top-level company OKRAs and formulate plans to correct any issues
• Assist in maximizing the company's operating performance and achieving its financial goals, particularly for the Cloud Platform.
• Build relationships with various department heads to facilitate global optimization of resources across divisions.
• Collaborate with our channels team to develop and drive our technical partnership strategy.
• Coach, and scale director-level product leaders, providing the context and air cover they need for their organizations to move the product team forward.
• Balance portfolio of platform investments to support the needs of large self-hosted customers while enabling SaaS customers.
• Partner with the CPO to communicate progress at the executive level from both a product-market fit and budget perspective.
• Stay aware of competitors, the market, expansion opportunities and new industry standards and development.

The Expectations

In the first 30 days, you will understand the market context, our strategic priorities, and in-flight major initiatives. You'll get a sense for our core processes for building products for both self-hosted and SaaS users, and some of the tradeoffs and leverage points we have available to us. You'll meet with your direct reports and their teams, as well as the department heads in supporting functions like Engineering, Sales, Customer Success, and Marketing. You will start to lead the core PM rituals around OKRs and departmental events and take other VP, Product Management responsibilities over from the CPO.

After three months you will be fully integrated into the team, and have a hypothesis on what investments we need to make, and what capabilities we need to build, to continue on our mission of helping every developer build world-changing apps. You will socialize your thinking with the CPO and the broader executive team.

You Have

• 15+ years experience in Product Management, and 10+ years in a leadership role
• Strong communication, interpersonal, public speaking, and leadership skills.
• Demonstrated ability to build developer platform or cloud infrastructure products (database experience not required)
• Experience scaling and retaining high-performing and organizationally complex teams, including managing managers
• Comfort navigating and experience influencing at the executive level
• Successfully driven high-impact, cross-functional projects that directly support company-wide initiatives and goals
• Excellent writing skills; our strategic product meetings are based on docs rather than decks.

The Team

Reporting to Nate Stewart - Chief Product Officer

Nate is responsible for the overall product strategy and the activities we take to guide Cockroach Labs to product-market-fit. As a former engineer, Nate has seen how the challenges of working with data in unreliable, distributed environments often distract developers from building great things. Nate joined Cockroach Labs to help companies avoid that pain once and for all. When he's not at work, Nate can be found spending time with his family, reading a book from his Goodreads queue, or trying to remove the rust from his tennis game.

Our Benefits

• 100% health insurance coverage (for you and your dependents!)
• Paid parental leave (with baby bucks)
• Flex Fridays
• Flexible time off & flexible hours
• Education reimbursement
• Relocation support

Cockroach Labs is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer building a diverse and inclusive workforce. If you need additional accommodations to feel comfortable during your interview process, please email us at accessibility@cockroachlabs.com.

The annual anticipated base salary range for U.S. candidates for this role is USD $230,000 to $315,000, plus commission if a sales role. We set standard ranges for all U.S.-based roles based on function, level, and geographic location, benchmarked against similar stage growth companies. In order to be compliant with local legislation, as well as to provide greater transparency to candidates, we share salary ranges on all job postings regardless of desired hiring location. Actual salaries may vary and fall outside of this range depending on factors such as a candidate's qualifications, geographic location, skills, experience, and competencies. In addition, we are often open to a wide variety of profiles, and recognize that the person we hire may be less experienced (or more senior) than this job description as posted. Salary is one component of the Cockroach Labs' total rewards package, which includes stock options, health insurance, life and disability insurance, funds towards professional development resources, unlimited PTO, paid holidays, and parental leave, to name a few! Salaries for candidates outside the U.S. will vary based on local compensation structures.