Director of Technical Product Management, Ava Labs
Platform Engineering
$215-270k
+ Offers Token and Equity Package
Smart contracts platform for dApps
Be an early applicant
Smart contracts platform for dApps
501-1000 employees
Be an early applicant
$215-270k
+ Offers Token and Equity Package
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To build an open, simple, and democratic internet of finance that enables the world to have a more prosperous future.
Role
Who you are
- The "Bridge" Skill Set: Capacity to engage in sophisticated architectural discussions with Engineers while simultaneously articulating the return on investment (ROI) for a technical strategic shift to C-suite executives or Business Development leadership
- Engineering DNA: A robust technical foundation, typically demonstrated by an academic degree in Computer Science or substantial prior professional experience in an Engineering role before transitioning into Product Management
- Market Intuition: Proactively identify systemic requirements that extend beyond immediate client requests. This involves recognizing patterns, such as recurrent demands for the same specialized primitive, and initiating the development of standardized, unified platform solutions
- Blockchain Fluency: Thorough comprehension of the web3 landscape, specifically concerning primitives such as consensus mechanisms, execution environments (especially the EVM), ZK cryptography, etc. Prior familiarity with the Avalanche ecosystem is highly advantageous
- Ruthless Prioritization: Within a high-growth startup environment where numerous initiatives appear critical, the ability to effectively leverage data and client intelligence to discern between "must-have" features essential for platform dominance and "nice-to-have" technical innovations
- Leadership Unlock: Demonstrated ability to operate with Director-level autonomy, influencing senior stakeholders and shaping cross-functional strategy, with the capacity to build and lead Technical Product Management capabilities as the organization scales
What the job involves
- As Director of Technical Product Management on the Platform Engineering team at Ava Labs, you will link Engineering and Business Development
- Your role is essential to ensure Avalanche blockchain's technology meets the needs of our key external clients and developers
- This central, pivotal role bridges the gap between opportunity sourcing by Business Development and infrastructure creation by Engineering
- The primary focus is to develop a long-term, comprehensive product vision and strategic roadmap that spans multiple complex, intersecting product areas
- This vision must address current market demands while proactively anticipating future trends and disruptive forces, and will directly inform executive-level prioritization and investment decisions
- You will be accountable for defining measurable outcomes tied to platform adoption, ecosystem growth, and strategic partner enablement, ensuring roadmap decisions translate into durable business impact
- A critical responsibility is institutionalizing innovation across Engineering and Product groups
- This involves establishing frameworks, processes, and fostering a culture of continuous experimentation
- Success hinges on deep collaboration with Engineering, Business Development, Clients, and Builders to ensure the integrated product portfolio delivers exponential value and maintains market leadership
- Technical Stakeholder Engagement: Lead collaboration with the Business Development team in conducting in-depth technical discussions with external clients, builders, and institutional partners
- Serve as the senior product authority in technical consultation processes, translating complex architectural concepts into language that directly aligns with the client’s strategic business objectives and long-term ROI
- Requirement Elucidation and Specification: Serve as the "Voice of the Builder" within the Engineering organization
- Accurately capture nuanced feedback from external parties and convert ambiguous business requirements into precise technical specifications and defined user stories that inform platform-level decisions
- Roadmap Prioritization and Influence: Co-own and drive the strategic platform roadmap in partnership with Engineering leadership, systematically integrating external market demands into the core development lifecycle
- This role will directly influence strategic decision-making regarding future product development, focusing on which technical solutions address the most critical real-world problems and unlock ecosystem growth
- Establish durable product operating mechanisms across Platform Engineering, including prioritization frameworks, roadmap governance, experimentation models, and post-launch measurement
- Institutionalize repeatable processes that improve decision quality, execution velocity, and strategic clarity
- Platform Capability Analysis: Continuously evaluate the current platform's feature set against competing offerings and evolving client requirements
- Identify critical missing features or foundational primitives that are currently impeding the adoption by major applications, and define scalable, standardized solutions that reduce bespoke development
- Technical Translation & Business Case Development: Actively participate in architecture review sessions, engaging senior engineers with informed questions regarding technical trade-offs
- Transform complex technical proposals into clear business cases, including a quantified analysis of the projected impact
- Utilize data analysis to effectively mediate and resolve disagreements between Engineering and Business Development teams, ensuring alignment around long-term platform strategy
Our take
The highly secure and decentralised nature of blockchain technology makes it an attractive prospect for financial projects. Historically, this has compromised transaction speed and scalability, with Ethereum and Blockchain speeds barely breaking into double digits per second.
Ava Labs’ open-source platform, Avalanche, enables companies to launch decentralised applications with all the benefits of blockchain, whilst processing a record-smashing 4,500 transactions per second. The company's strategy has been to tailor its blockchain to specific applications, establishing a reputation in the sector through efficient hard-and-fast use cases with low fees. This has allowed it to operate alongside blockchain giants like Ethereum that hold large amounts of the DeFi market.
In answering the strong appetite for a cheaper and more scalable blockchain consensus, Ava Labs has found a keen audience and secured the ability to pursue its goal of opening the space up to more users. The Avalanche platform has become the first to partner with Amazon Web Services, becoming part of a project to bring blockchain technology to government and enterprises. The company also partnered with digital identity verification provider Blockpass to collaborate towards furthering the safety, security and capabilities of the ecosystem.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
61% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)
Apr 2022
$350m
LATE VC
Sep 2021
$230m
LATE VC
Total funding: $586m
Company benefits
- 401k (non-matching)
- Commuter Benefits
- Comprehensive Insurance
- Short-term/long-term Disability
- Life Insurance
- Happy Hour Fridays
- Team Activities
- Remote-friendly Networking
- Unlimited PTO
- Remote Friendly
- Volunteer Time-Off
Company HQ
Hell's Kitchen, New York, NY
Leadership
Kevin Sekniqi
(Co-Founder)Former Researcher and Software Engineer at Microsoft and NASA, with a PhD in Computer Science from Cornell.
Emin Gun Sirer
(Co-Founder & CEO)Founder of Bloxroute Labs and professor at Cornell for 20 years with a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Washington.
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