Director of Product Line Management

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in California.

📋 Description

• Develop a multi-year portfolio strategy, including market segmentation, investment thesis, pricing, packaging, revenue planning, margin targets, and portfolio rationalization decisions.

• Oversee the complete development process for Layer 2 switching, Carrier Ethernet demarcation, NID/eNID, access, and edge products.

• Specify market requirements, business cases, PRDs, platform selections, feature priorities, release criteria, and lifecycle plans.

• Create scalable enterprise services such as Ethernet Private Line, Virtual Private Line, E-LAN, DIA access, managed LAN, cloud connectivity, and related secure or assured connectivity offerings.

• Collaborate with Engineering and Architecture on switching silicon, system architecture, network operating software, optics, timing, power, thermal, security, manageability, and service-assurance needs.

• Assess and manage partnerships with chipset, ODM/JDM, contract manufacturing, optics, software, certification, and technology providers.

• Implement product lifecycle stage gates from discovery and concept through development, field trials, launch, sustaining engineering, refresh, migration, end-of-sale, and end-of-support.

• Articulate positioning, competitive differentiation, sales strategies, solution bundles, enablement, launch readiness, reference customers, and adoption programs in collaboration with Sales and Marketing.

• Ensure that products and services are deployable, observable, supportable, and automatable through OSS/BSS, inventory, orchestration, telemetry, assurance, and zero-touch provisioning.

• Build, mentor, and cultivate a high-performing product line management team with defined decision rights, operating rhythms, accountability, and succession plans.

• Take ownership of product-line revenue, bookings, adoption, strategic account penetration, gross margin, forecast accuracy, inventory health, and return on product investments.

• Drive roadmap predictability, timely launches, quality, certification readiness, field-trial conversions, lifecycle discipline, service availability, SLA performance, deployment speed, customer satisfaction, renewals, and expansions.

⛳️ Requirements

• 12+ years of experience in product management or product line leadership within telecom, networking, or enterprise connectivity sectors.

• 5+ years of experience leading teams or managing major portfolios.

• Proven success in launching and scaling physical networking products such as Layer 2 switches, NIDs/eNIDs, access devices, routers, or edge appliances, alongside software and service capabilities.

• Experience managing a product line business plan, including revenue and margin performance, pricing, roadmap investments, and lifecycle decisions.

• Technical proficiency in hardware, silicon, NOS/software, optics, protocols, APIs, telemetry, and deployment trade-offs.

• Strong grasp of enterprise buyer needs, telecom operator economics, global competitive dynamics, routes to market, and standards-based service delivery.

• Experience in aligning Engineering, Operations, Supply Chain, Sales, Marketing, Finance, Legal, and external partners around product decisions.

• Exceptional communication skills and cross-functional leadership capabilities.

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Telecommunications, or a related field.

• Willingness to travel domestically and internationally, typically up to 25–35%.

• Valid passport with no significant travel restrictions.

• Capacity to work across global time zones and address matters outside standard business hours when necessary.

• Familiarity with Layer 2 switching, including Ethernet switching architectures, VLANs, IEEE 802.1Q, QinQ/802.1ad, LAG/MC-LAG, STP/RSTP/MSTP, LLDP, QoS, buffering, multicast, and resilience.

• Knowledge of Carrier Ethernet and MEF services, including E-Line, E-LAN, E-Tree, EPL/EVPL, bandwidth profiles, class of service, service OAM, SLA design, UNI/NNI concepts, and lifecycle automation.

• Experience with network demarcation and access, including NIDs/eNIDs, CPE/uCPE, fixed and mobile access, multi-rate GbE interfaces, optics, synchronization, timing, and carrier-grade deployment.

• Experience with hardware and software platforms, including merchant silicon, SDK ecosystems, BSPs, embedded systems, network operating systems, APIs, telemetry, secure boot, software maintenance, component lifecycle, and supply-chain risk.

• Expertise in service assurance and automation, including IEEE 802.1ag CFM, ITU-T Y.1731, performance monitoring, fault isolation, zero-touch provisioning, streaming telemetry, orchestration, inventory, and closed-loop assurance.

• Commercial product management expertise in market sizing, competitive analysis, portfolio economics, pricing, gross margin, unit cost, forecasting, business cases, channel strategy, and contract or SLA implications.

🏝️ Benefits

• Equal opportunity and inclusive, diverse working environment.

• Remote collaboration environment.

• Professional office environment.

• Opportunity to shape next-generation enterprise connectivity products and services.

• Entrepreneurial organization with autonomy, ownership, collaboration, and accountability.