Product Manager

Arcessio; Oakland (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Arcessio seeks a hands-on product leader who blends customer discovery, UX design, and product management to ship intuitive hardware-enabled products. You’ll start as a senior IC, reporting to the CTO, with potential to shape the product and design function as the company grows.

The role spans customer discovery, UX, and product management, with emphasis on AI‑first experiences for mechanical and manufacturing engineers.

Qualifications

• 7+ years across product, design, or engineering in early-stage environments.
• Proven track record shipping products from problem to solution.
• Strong affinity for physical-product development in hardware-based contexts.
• Degree in Mechanical/Manufacturing Engineering, Product Design, or Robotics valued.
• Ability to translate customer needs into product requirements with engineering-friendly specs.
• Experience with AI-native prototyping and tools.

Responsibilities

• Lead customer interviews and visits to understand workflows from design to manufacturing.
• Own end-to-end product experience from discovery to roadmap to shipped product.
• Develop roadmap, PRDs, user stories, with clear acceptance criteria.
• Collaborate with engineers from definition through QA and launch.
• Set quality bar for usability and visual craft as team grows.
• Balance priorities across PLG, enterprise, and manufacturing customers.

Skills

customer discovery

UX design

product management

physical-product development

AI-native prototyping

end-to-end product leadership

Education

Mechanical Engineering

Manufacturing Engineering

Product Design

Robotics

Tools

Cursor

Claude

Lovable

Replit

v0

Job description

We are looking for the product counterpart to a 10x engineer : someone who can independently identify customer problems, rapidly validate solutions with AI-native tools, translate them into crisp engineering work, and keep the team focused on shipping intuitive products that drive customer and business outcomes.

This is our first dedicated product hire. It is a hands‑on product leadership role for someone who thrives in early‑stage startups and is comfortable moving from customer conversation to prototype to roadmap to shipped product. You will report to the Chief Product & Technology Officer, operate as a senior individual contributor initially, and have the opportunity to shape and build the product and design function as the company grows.

This role spans three disciplines that are usually split across three people: customer discovery, UX design, and product management. We are looking for someone genuinely strong at all three who is energized by moving between them, not a specialist in one who tolerates the other two.

Because our users are mechanical engineers, manufacturing engineers, and teams building physical products, we are especially interested in people who have worked close to hardware, robotics, autonomous systems, drones, automotive, industrial automation, advanced manufacturing, CAD/CAE/PLM, or other physical‑AI environments. A mechanical engineering background is highly valued, but hands‑on experience building or shipping physical products can be equally relevant.

What you’ll do — Discover

• Run customer interviews and site visits with mechanical and manufacturing engineers to understand how products move from design through manufacturing and sourcing.

• Learn the reasoning behind engineering decisions, not just the requested feature: geometry, tolerances, materials, process selection, cost, lead time, quality, and production constraints.

• Turn customer workflows, pain points, and unmet needs into clear product opportunities and priorities.

• Build a continuous discovery habit so the team is never guessing about what customers actually need.

• Develop enough domain depth that engineers feel the product was built by people who understand how they work.

What you’ll do — Design

• Own the end‑to‑end user experience: information architecture, user flows, wireframes, high‑fidelity screens, and functional prototypes. There is no separate design partner; this surface is yours to shape.

• Design agentic, AI‑first experiences that make complex manufacturing and engineering decisions feel simple and require minimal training or support.

• Design for trust: help users understand why the system is making a recommendation, where uncertainty exists, and when human judgment should remain in the loop.

• Set and hold the quality bar for usability and visual craft as the product and team grow.

What you’ll do — Deliver

• Prototype and validate solutions quickly using AI‑native tools before committing meaningful engineering time.

• Translate validated concepts into a clear roadmap, product requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, and engineering tickets.

• Partner closely with engineering from definition through QA and launch, making tradeoffs quickly and keeping delivery on track.

• Own product outcomes across activation, engagement, retention, customer value, and revenue impact.

• Own the product roadmap: decide what we build and in what order, and make the case for why, including what we give up by not doing it.

• Reconcile competing priorities across PLG users, enterprise customers, DoD programs, suppliers, and engineering.

• Help distinguish between customer‑specific requests and scalable product capabilities that belong in the core platform.

What you bring

• 7+ years across product management, product design, engineering, or a hybrid of these disciplines, including meaningful experience in early‑stage or 0→1 environments.

• A track record of taking products from ambiguous customer problem to shipped solution, not just planning or handing off requirements.

• Strong affinity for physical‑product development. We especially value candidates who have worked with mechanical engineers or on robotics, autonomous systems, drones, automotive, industrial equipment, hardware, manufacturing, CAD/CAE/PLM, or related engineering products.

• A degree in Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Product Design, Robotics, or a related technical discipline is highly valued but not required. Equivalent hands‑on experience building, testing, manufacturing, or shipping physical products is equally interesting.

• Real design skill: you can take a product from blank canvas to information architecture, user flows, and high‑fidelity screens, working in whatever tool gets you there fastest, and you can explain the judgment behind the choices.

• Strong customer discovery skills: you run interviews yourself, are comfortable going onsite, listen well, and can separate what customers say from what they actually need.

• Sound product judgment: you can reconcile customer needs, technical constraints, and business goals, and say no to good ideas that are not the priority.

• Fluency with AI‑native prototyping and development tools such as Cursor, Claude, Lovable, Replit, v0, or similar, and a habit of adopting better tools quickly.

• Enough technical fluency to work shoulder‑to‑shoulder with engineers, understand APIs, integrations, data flows, and implementation tradeoffs, and create engineering‑ready requirements.

• Familiarity with agentic products, AI‑assisted workflows, human‑in‑the‑loop systems, or AI evaluation is strongly preferred.

• A self‑directed, low‑ego operating style: you can move fast with incomplete information, communicate clearly, and close loops.

• Curiosity about how things are actually designed and made. You do not need to be the manufacturing expert on day one, but you should want to understand why an engineer chose a particular material, geometry, tolerance, or process.

You may be an especially strong fit if

• You started your career as a mechanical engineer and moved into product.

• You have been an early product hire or founder at a robotics, autonomy, drone, hardware, industrial, or physical‑AI company.

• You have personally built or shipped physical products and later moved into software.

• You have worked on CAD, PLM, simulation, manufacturing, engineering, or technical workflow software.

• You have spent meaningful time with engineers in labs, factories, field environments, or customer sites.

• You are the kind of PM who wants to understand how the thing actually works , not just what should appear on the screen.

What success looks like

• Mechanical and manufacturing engineers feel that Arcessio understands how they actually work.

• Customers reach value faster because the product is intuitive, useful, and easy to adopt.

• Customer insight translates into a focused roadmap tied to measurable business outcomes.

• Activation, engagement, retention, expansion, and revenue improve as the product gets better.

• Important product questions are answered through prototypes and customer validation before they become expensive engineering work.

• Engineering receives clear priorities and crisp requirements, and the team ships high‑quality product on time.

• Customer‑specific learnings are converted into scalable product capabilities rather than one‑off solutions.

• You help establish a faster, AI‑native product development model that becomes part of Arcessio’s long‑term advantage.