Principal Product Manager, FOCUS

The Linux Foundation; United States; Remote; USD 225,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

The Linux Foundation is seeking a Principal Product Manager for FOCUS (FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification). This fully remote role requires leading the product strategy, ecosystem roadmap, and multi-group collaboration across FinOps Foundation, Tokenomics Foundation, and ITAM Forum.

You will drive AI service charging considerations, backlog governance, and industry-standardization efforts while mentoring teams and shaping open source product thinking.

Qualifications

• BS/BA degree and 10-15 years of relevant product or technical experience.
• Domain expert in cloud billing data and FinOps practices.
• Proven ability to translate complex tech challenges into scalable solutions.

Responsibilities

• Define product strategy, ecosystem roadmap, and long-term vision for FOCUS.
• Lead cross-organizational initiatives across Linux Foundation groups.
• Manage conformance programs, training updates, and community impact.

Skills

Cross-functional leadership

Executive-level writing

Strategic product thinking

Open source leadership

AI/ML service pricing awareness

Communicating diverse priorities

Education

BS/BA degree

10-15 years of relevant product/technical experience

Tools

GitHub

SQL

information architecture

Job description

Principal Product Manager, FOCUS

FinOps Foundation, Linux Foundation

The FinOps Foundation is hiring a Principal Product Manager to define the product strategy, ecosystem-level roadmap, and future vision for FOCUS (FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification). You will lead cross-organizational initiatives and drive product outcomes that impact the broader open source ecosystem.

Full-time contract or employee role. Fully remote. US, SA, and EU time zones preferred. Travel several times a year.

Product Strategy, Roadmapping & Execution

• Lead Ecosystem Strategy: Define product architecture and strategy in partnership with internal technical staff and working group maintainers. Anticipate market shifts, align long-term vision, and set standards for product excellence across the FinOps ecosystem.

• Orchestrate High-Impact Releases: Structure multi-year roadmaps and execution plans that de-risk complexity, cross team boundaries, and align to goals across the Linux Foundation Tech Value Umbrella (FinOps Foundation, Tokenomics Foundation, and the ITAM Forum). Build highly defensible release plans backed by strategic KPIs, capacity metrics, and deep evidence.

• Govern the Backlog: Tackle strategically important problems at the organizational level. Evolve day-to-day backlog triage into scalable frameworks for prioritization, carefully balancing community support, estimates of working group activities, and ecosystem value.

• Drive AI Innovations: Craft feature requests defining how the FOCUS specification could represent complex, emerging charges for AI services, resolving deep technical tradeoffs and system-level implications.

Ecosystem Leadership & Stakeholder Management

• Influence the Industry: Communicate a compelling product vision across executive, engineering, design, and community audiences. Actively evangelize FOCUS and open source product thinking internally and externally.

• Manage Complex Relationships: Build alignment and resolve conflicts among C-level executives, cloud providers, SaaS vendors, data generators, and practitioners who often represent competing organizations.

• Drive Community Insight: Introduce scalable, systemic approaches to discovery and validation. Partner with the community team to shape activities that gather definitive data and test market assumptions. Connect ecosystem trends with product direction.

• Force Multiplier: Act as a mentor and leader across the Foundation, guiding product prioritization across competing needs and aligning efforts to foundation-wide objectives.

Industry Standardization & Operational Excellence

• Scale Conformance Certification: Orchestrate and evaluate the FOCUS conformance certification program. Introduce processes, tooling, and workflows that eliminate inefficiencies, enabling the program to scale seamlessly at an industry level.

• Elevate Training & Support: Contribute visionary updates to the FOCUS training program and oversee education implementation, ensuring scalable knowledge sharing and design maturity growth across the Foundation.

Technical Stewardship & Product Experience

• Own the Information Architecture: Connect disparate systems into coherent user journeys. Oversee the FOCUS website's architecture, specification content, and use case library.

• Translate Technical Complexity: Align the use case library with the specification's example SQL. Analyze coverage gaps and translate highly complex technical systems into pragmatic, systemic solutions.

• Active Working Group Contribution: Participate as an elite contributor, driving modular design thinking. Review complex pull requests and issues on GitHub, track specification content to merge, and orchestrate work spanning multiple technical domains.

What You Bring

• Education & Experience: BS/BA degree and 10-15 years of relevant product or technical experience; recognized leader in product strategy and execution, capable of bringing clarity to chaos under pressure

• Domain Expertise: Domain expert in cloud billing data, enterprise platforms, and FinOps; deep understanding of how practitioners use data, where it falls short, and how data generators implement specifications

• Strategic & Technical Fluency: Proven ability to translate highly complex technical challenges into broadly leverageable solutions; deep understanding of how AI services are charged (experience mapping these to FOCUS is a plus)

• Communication & Facilitation: Masterful communicator capable of aligning diverse, competing organizations; clear, executive-level writing and presentation skills

• Tooling Proficiency: Advanced fluency in GitHub (or ability to scale deeply into it quickly), advanced SQL, and information architecture; fluent, responsible use of AI assistants in line with the FOCUS AI Usage Guidelines

• Operational Excellence: Exemplary organizational skills with a proven track record of managing multi-stakeholder initiatives and running or simplifying complex certification, audit, or compliance programs

• Open Source Leadership: Strong background in open source strategy and cross-functional collaborative environments

About FOCUS

FOCUS (the FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification) is an open specification that normalizes cost and usage data across technology providers, so practitioners can report on and act on it in one format. It is an independent specification project under the Joint Development Foundation. The FinOps Foundation supports it, and it is open to input from other Linux Foundation bodies, including the Tokenomics Foundation and the ITAM Forum. Contributors from cloud providers, SaaS vendors, tool vendors, and practitioner organizations develop the specification in the open on GitHub.

About the FinOps Foundation

The FinOps Foundation is a Linux Foundation program dedicated to advancing cloud financial management through best practices, education, and standards. With 96,000+ practitioners globally, the Foundation develops the FinOps Framework and FOCUS specification while serving a vibrant community of cloud professionals.

Additional Information

Salary $225,000 - $260,000 USD

The Linux Foundation is unable to provide visa sponsorship for this position. Candidates must be authorized to work in their country of residence without employer sponsorship, now or in the future.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.