Founding Product Manager/Owner

Reliever, Inc.; Minneapolis (MN); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Reliever is hiring its first product hire to own the full product lifecycle—from discovery to delivery and post-launch iteration. You will shape the platform spanning bookkeeping, reporting, embedded banking, and nonprofit tax compliance, collaborating with the CEO, leadership, and design partners.

The role emphasizes AI-first product management, turning epics into clear user stories, and coordinating a small engineering team to move fast while maintaining quality. A startup mindset is essential.

Qualifications

• Experience guiding products from discovery to launch and beyond.
• Ability to write actionable epics and user stories for engineers.
• Close collaboration with engineering and design partners.
• Comfort building processes in ambiguity and fast-paced environments.
• Excellent written communication and documentation skills.

Responsibilities

• Own the product roadmap end to end, from discovery through post-launch iteration.
• Translate partner feedback into epics with clear success metrics.
• Decompose epics into developable user stories with acceptance criteria.
• Lead delivery cadence with engineering and external partners.
• Attend design-partner sessions to translate workflows into product requirements.

Skills

Product lifecycle

AI-first product management

Agile delivery

Startup experience

Clear written specs

Job description

Reliever is the back office for youth sports. Backed and co-founded by Rally Ventures, we are building a purpose-built financial operating system for the volunteer-run nonprofit associations that power community sports across America. These organizations move hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year through dues, fundraisers, sponsorships, and charitable gambling, all managed by volunteers on nights and weekends.

These associations carry real financial complexity: dozens of team bank accounts, contractor payments, Form 990 and UBIT obligations, state gambling compliance, and board-level fiduciary duty. Yet they are too small to afford professional financial staff, and the tools they use today were never designed for them: spreadsheets, personal QuickBooks files, email chains, and paper checks. Reliever replaces that patchwork with one platform that combines modern software, embedded banking, and professional accounting services, so every board can prove every dollar reached the kids.

We are a funded, pre-seed-stage company launching with anchor design partners in the Minnesota hockey market in the second half of 2026. You would join as one of the first hires on the founding team, working directly with the CEO and leadership.

THE ROLE

This is not a backlog-administration seat. You will be Reliever's first product hire, and you will own the product lifecycle end to end: from discovery with real volunteer treasurers, through definition and prioritization, to delivery with our engineering team and iteration after launch. The platform you will shape spans bookkeeping and reporting, team card programs, embedded banking, and nonprofit tax and compliance. It is a genuinely deep product surface for a founding PM.

Reliever is an AI-first company, and this role is AI-first product management. You will run a modern, AI-assisted product development practice, using AI best practices to convert epics into clear, developable user stories, generate and refine specifications, and keep a small engineering team moving at an uncommon pace. The ideal candidate has done this inside a startup before, staying close to engineers, close to customers, and comfortable building the process rather than inheriting it.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

Own the product lifecycle

• Own the product roadmap end to end, from discovery and requirements through design collaboration, prioritization, agile delivery, launch, and post-launch iteration, across the full Reliever platform

• Translate company strategy and design-partner feedback into well-formed epics, and drive them to shipped software with clear success metrics for every release

• Apply AI best practices and tooling to decompose epics into developable, testable user stories with acceptance criteria, edge cases, and compliance logic that engineers can build from without rework

• Run the delivery cadence hand in hand with our engineering team and external development partner, covering sprint planning, backlog health, story acceptance, and release management

• Sit in design-partner sessions with real association treasurers and board members, translating their pain into requirements and their workflows into product

Build the AI-native product practice

• Establish the specs, templates, prompt libraries, and AI-assisted workflows that let one PM do the work of a product team

• Orchestrate your own pod of AI agents for research, documentation, story generation, and QA support, consistent with Reliever's AI-first operating model in which every human hire is amplified by agents

• Partner with our founding CPA to encode accounting workflows, internal controls, and compliance logic into product requirements, turning professional expertise into software

• Help shape pricing, packaging, and the product roadmap as an early voice on the founding team

WHAT YOU BRING

• Demonstrated skill across all aspects of the software product lifecycle, from discovery and definition through design, delivery, launch, and iteration, with shipped products to show for it

• Hands-on experience using AI best practices to convert epics into developable user stories. You have made AI-assisted requirements writing a working part of a real delivery process, not an experiment

• A track record of working closely with engineering teams. You are embedded in the sprint cadence, trusted by engineers, and fluent in technical trade‑off conversations

• Experience in a startup or early‑stage environment. You are energized by ambiguity, comfortable creating process rather than inheriting it, and biased to ship

• Exceptional written communication. Your specs, stories, and decision docs are clear enough to build from

NICE TO HAVE

• A genuine passion for youth sports, or experience volunteering with youth sports organizations. You understand the people this product serves

• Experience improving professional services with AI, in fields such as accounting, legal, or tax

• Fintech, embedded banking, payments, or accounting‑workflow product experience

• Familiarity with nonprofit operations, volunteer‑run organizations, or association management

WHY THIS ROLE IS DIFFERENT

• Founding‑team seat at a venture‑backed company co‑founded with Rally Ventures, with your fingerprints on the product, the process, and the company itself

• A full‑stack product surface spanning software, banking, cards, and compliance that most PMs wait a career to own

• A mission that matters in your own community, giving volunteers their nights and weekends back and protecting the money families entrust to youth sports

LOCATION & HOW TO APPLY

This is a hybrid role based in Minnesota, working from our Minneapolis and Stillwater, Minnesota offices up to three days per week. Candidates must currently reside in, or be relocating to, Minnesota.