Product Management Lead
Austin, Texas
Research & Engineering – Product /
On-site
Company
The earth beneath our feet holds extraordinary, untapped capacity to accelerate the clean energy transition. Bedrock Energy is on a mission to transform the heating and cooling of buildings, using carbon-free, hyper-efficient, and ultra-safe geothermal energy to radically reduce costs for people and the environment. Incorporated in 2022, Bedrock raised $9M in Seed capital and is gathering exceptional talent to scale geothermal energy to decarbonize buildings everywhere. We’re seeking creative, collaborative, proactive team members who inspire us with their high standards of excellence, integrity, and commitment to our shared mission.
Role
As the first Product Manager at Bedrock, you will set the business rationale and prioritization for our cross-functional product planning. Bedrock’s Product offering is technology-enabled construction of geothermal heating/cooling systems; as such, developing our technology and services involves tight coordination of Technology Engineering, Field Engineering, and Field Operations.
In these earliest stages as a geothermal heating/cooling company, Product development at Bedrock targets continuous capability expansion, risk reduction, and cost improvement. You should have an instinct for quantitative business value, comfort with heavy equipment “hard-tech”, and deep customer empathy within a construction-oriented service. You will collaborate closely with internal teams to understand and document our construction requirements, challenges, and cost drivers; you will build and maintain the higher-level Product roadmap that directs the company to aggressively improve its geothermal delivery capabilities; and you will empower the Technology Engineering and Field Engineering teams to execute on their specific functional roadmaps by creating strong systems, processes, and document repositories for best-in-class start-up product development. If successful in this role, you will be the guiding voice of business value to the Technology and Field teams, and their champion in translating their deep technical knowledge into business goals.
Responsiblities
- Document and prioritize multi-disciplinary Product opportunities in terms of business value:
- Distill user needs from the Field Operations and Customer/Partner stakeholders; analyze opportunities based on quantifiable impact to Bedrock’s value proposition; serve as “voice of the customer” to validate Product priorities and course-correct as needed
- Organize solution opportunities identified by the Field Engineering and Technology stakeholders into frameworks based on business value (customer needs and Bedrock economics); support with market/competitive research and quantitative impact analysis as applicable
- Articulate above ‘business requirements’ as Product priorities to guide Technology Engineering and Field Engineering in their functional roadmapping
- Build out and maintain a multi-quarter Product roadmap that tracks progress against concrete delivery goals, ensuring that Bedrock’s functional teams stay on track to delivering value:
- Analyze cross-functional dependencies so that Product, Technology, Field, and Commercial roadmaps are appropriately aligned and risks are mitigated
- Ensure key component specification decisions are clearly articulated for integrator partners, highlighting where design decisions have dependencies on or implications for 3rd-party service/parts vendors
- Track cross-functional delivery schedule; flag risks, uncertainties, and bottlenecks to leadership
- Architect processes and systems for cross-functional collaboration and progress on the expansion of Bedrock’s overall Product/Capabilities:
- Provide structure, rigor, consistency, and clarity of communication across systems and documentation repositories (Jira, Confluence, Google Sheets, and others to be evaluated and introduced)
- Define metrics for evaluating customer and business impact, make them widely visible, and ensure functional teams are leveraging them in data-driven prioritization decisions for Technology Engineering and Field Engineering
- Structure clear information flows and workflows across functional teams, improving consistency of nomenclature and aligning expectations about delivery and documentation
- Coordinate Field Engineering, Field Operations, and Technology Engineering teams in high-level QA/QC planning:
- Support functional teams in proactively gathering and evaluating risk scenarios for quality deployment of technology and field operations
- Organize test cases and mitigation strategies and report to leadership on key points of potential failure across integrated operation
- Define test processes to ensure quality delivery against specifications
Qualifications
- 7-10+ years in a product management role, ideally with experience across heavy capital equipment, industrial automation, robotics, manufacturing, and/or operationally intensive services Bachelors or Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or similar disciplines
- Start-up experience is a must, ideally in an early-stage technology venture with frequent new product definition and MVP prioritization
- Successful responsibility for bottoms-up end-to-end product processes, from market research and product definition to development and deployment
- Instinct for market value, customer delight, and business outcomes in an B2B enterprise segment, intuitively translating quantitative data to product/business decisions amid uncertainty and complexity
- Demonstrated ability to establish strong credibility with engineering leadership, understand system dependencies, and navigate/negotiate trade-offs across technical and business stakeholders
- Extremely strong, detailed, and organized communication skills, with innate ability to translate technical problems and uncertainties into concrete ‘core factors’, clearly map out the relevant system and key levers, and then articulate actionable decision-trees
- Appetite to dive quickly into multi-disciplinary technical challenges as a layperson and extract the most relevant insights for cross-functional audiences, including the ability to adjust communication style based on audience
- Positive, “yes if” mindset with a bias towards hands-on action, proactive resourcefulness, ability to drive to consensus and next steps, and healthy interpersonal respect and empathy for different viewpoints
- Willingness to travel -- if not based in Austin, TX, this role will require travel expected 1-2x per month at first, then tapering to 1-2x per quarter once the team is more established
Qualities
- Proactivity: You take ownership, offer hypotheses, and hold yourself accountable.
- Coachability: You welcome & react constructively to feedback and seek new skills with gusto.
- Excellence: You hold yourself, and your team members, to high standards of performance.
- Creativity: You enjoy finding resourceful, unconventional, flexible solutions to problems.
- Integrity: You take pride in ethical, honest behavior, no matter who is around to see it.
- Compassion: You remember empathy, respect, and care in your interactions with others.
- Commitment to Diversity: You actively look to surround yourself & collaborate inclusively with people who are different from you in experience, background, worldview, and resources.
Bedrock Energy is building a strong culture based on our Organizational Values. In addition, we are committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Bedrock Energy is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status.
