Product Manager, CRO

OpenKrill; United States; On-site; USD 130,000 - 145,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

Dental insurance

Vision Coverage

Flexible Spending Account

401K

Paid holidays

Paid vacation/Unlimited PTO

Job summary

Prendio is seeking a Product Manager to own the CRO product strategy, working remotely with the headquarters located in Burlington, MA. You will lead discovery, decide what to build, and craft the strategy and roadmap for a greenfield space.

This is a build role where you define the product, collaborate with CROs, suppliers, and biotech customers, and translate insights into a market-ready roadmap and commercialization plan.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in product management with ownership.
• Deep CRO ecosystem knowledge and how it works.
• Zero-to-one product space definition experience.
• Strong discovery and hypothesis validation abilities.
• Ability to connect customer problems to commercial models.

Responsibilities

• Own the CRO product strategy and define its roadmap.
• Do discovery with CROs, suppliers, and biotech customers.
• Validate opportunities and rule out hypotheses early.
• Connect problems to commercial value and business models.
• Build and phase a phased roadmap for the product.
• Partner with CRO business leadership and align with commercial goals.
• Work cross-functionally to turn strategy into shippable products.
• Translate strategy into defined products and commercialization plans.
• Remain engaged through delivery beyond planning.

Skills

Product management

Discovery instincts

Cross-functional communication

Ambiguity tolerance

CRO ecosystem knowledge

Job description

Title: Product Manager, CRO

Location: Remote - Headquarters located in Burlington, MA

Job Type: Remote

FLSA Classification: Exempt

Reports to: Chief Product Officer

Department: Product

Compensation: Base salary range: $130,000 - $145,000

(This role is compensated as base salary plus a company discretionary bonus. The bonus is determined by company performance and is not guaranteed.)

The Opportunity

Prendio sit at the center of how biotech companies find, contract with, and pay their research partners. There is a meaningful product opportunity across that journey, and we are bringing on a Product Manager to own it.

This is a build role. You will do the discovery, decide what the product should be, and create the strategy and roadmap behind it. The space is still being defined, which is the point — the work starts with figuring out what is worth building, not with an inherited backlog. We are looking for someone who wants to define something rather than maintain it.

Key Responsibilities

Own the CRO product strategy

• Form the product strategy for the CRO and supplier side of the business, and build a coherent thread through the ideas and early work that already exist.
• Define where we should play in this market, and be able to tell that story clearly to customers, partners, and internal leadership.

Do the discovery

• Get in front of CROs, suppliers, and biotech customers. Understand how the space actually works, where the friction is, and what each side genuinely values.
• Work closely with the internal teams already engaged in this space and build on what the company knows rather than starting from scratch.

Validate what is real, and invalidate what is not

• Test the opportunity areas across the CRO journey and determine which of them have real customer and commercial value.
• Say plainly when something does not hold up. Ruling out a hypothesis early is a win here, not a failure.

Connect problems to commercial value

• Identify where durable commercial value exists across the journey, and what a business model around it looks like.
• Build a value narrative that holds up on both sides of the market, for the biotech and for the partner on the other end of the work.

Build and phase the roadmap

• Prioritize where we have the best chance to win, and sequence the work into a phased roadmap rather than building everything at once.
• Make the trade-offs explicit so the rest of the company understands what we are doing first and why.

Partner with the business line

• Work hand in hand with our CRO business leadership. You own the product; they own the commercial and domain side. The two roles are designed to move together.
• Keep leadership current on what discovery is turning up, including the findings that change the plan.

Work across the company

• Partner with product development, data, engineering, sales, and client-facing teams to turn strategy into something that ships.
• Connect this work to the adjacent capabilities already in the platform.

Turn strategy into product

• Translate discovery and strategy into defined, executable products and commercialization opportunities.
• Stay involved through delivery. This is not a strategy role that hands off a deck.

Where This Role Can Go

• This is a build role at the front end of something with real room to grow. The person who defines it is the natural person to lead it.
• Depending on performance and how the business develops, the path leads to senior or principal ownership of this portfolio, or to leading it as its own segment.

What Success Looks Like

• There is a clear product strategy and a narrative the whole company can repeat about where we are going in this market.
• The opportunity areas have been tested. The ones with real value are identified and the ones without are explicitly ruled out.
• The product or products worth building are defined, scoped, and understood by the teams that have to build them.
• There is a phased roadmap built around where we can actually win, not around everything that is possible.
• The work is on a credible path to meaningful revenue and business value.

Your First 90 Days

• Meet the internal teams closest to this space and absorb what has already been learned or tried
• Map the CRO journey end to end and find where the real friction sits
• Run first-round discovery with CROs, suppliers, and biotech customers on both sides of the market
• Pressure-test what we think we know and form a point of view on what is worth real investment
• Build the working relationship with our CRO business leadership
• Deliver an initial strategy point of view with a recommended first phase and what you need to prove next

Qualifications

• 5+ years in product management, with ownership of what gets built and why
• Meaningful knowledge of the CRO ecosystem and how it actually works — this one is not negotiable
• Real zero-to-one experience. You have defined a product space that was not already defined, not just run a roadmap someone handed you
• Strong discovery instincts. You know how to validate or invalidate a hypothesis and you are willing to do the second one
• Able to connect a customer problem to a commercial model and defend the prioritization that follows
• Comfortable in ambiguity, and energized rather than unsettled by a space that is still being defined
• Strong cross-functional communicator who can carry a strategy across product, engineering, data, and commercial teams

Helpful Background

• Product experience at a company serving CROs, or products built specifically for the CRO market
• Time spent inside a CRO, or selling products and services into CROs
• Biotech, life sciences, or supplier and vendor-side experience
• Scientific background with relevant exposure to contract research
• Marketplace, two-sided platform, procurement, or sourcing product experience
• SaaS or platform experience in a regulated or complex environment

Benefits

• Blue Cross Blue Shield Health Insurance - 100% of employee premiums paid
• BCBS Dental insurance - 100% of employee premiums paid
• VSP Vision Coverage
• Flexible Spending Account Healthcare
• Health savings account with employer contribution
• 401K/Roth 401k
• Paid holidays
• Paid vacation/Unlimited PTO
• Other benefits, including a complimentary subscription to the Calm app, pet insurance, legal assistance and more

Prendio is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type and afford equal employment opportunities to employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.

This job description does NOT constitute an employment agreement between the employer and employee and is subject to change by the employer as the organizational needs and requirements of the job change.

US Base Pay Range

US Avg Base Pay Range$130,000-$145,000 USD