Principal Product Manager, Activation

Role Overview

• Activation Strategy & Ownership Own the complete activation experience—how business users build audiences, create customer profiles, activate data to downstream tools, and ultimately drive outcomes
• Develop deep expertise in reverse ETL, audience building, identity resolution, Customer 360/profiling, and data graph capabilities
• Identify where AI can fundamentally reimagine data activation (natural language audience building, predictive segmentation, automated insight generation)
• Define what "activated" means across customer segments and relentlessly drive toward reducing time-to-value
• Instrument activation funnels and build feedback loops that drive rapid iteration
• Product Execution Ship. Validate. Iterate. We're not interested in six-month roadmaps that become fiction—you'll operate in tight cycles with direct customer feedback
• Partner with engineering to build intuitive self-serve experiences that abstract away infrastructure complexity
• Own the interfaces where non-technical users interact with RudderStack: audience builders, profile explorers, sync configuration, and activation workflows
• Leverage AI throughout your own workflow—we expect you to specify, prototype, analyze, and move faster because of it
• Customer & User Obsession Develop genuine empathy for marketing, product, and revenue ops personas who need data but aren't data engineers
• Spend significant time with customers understanding their activation journeys, not just their feature requests
• Understand the gap between what data teams build and what business users can actually access—then close it
• Translate technical capabilities into business outcomes that non-technical users care about
• Cross-functional Impact Collaborate with Growth and Marketing on product-led strategies that demonstrate value before requiring setup
• Partner with Customer Success to identify activation patterns that predict long-term success
• Work directly with engineers on implementation—we don't have walls between PM and engineering
• Influence how we talk about activation externally through positioning, content, and customer storytelling

Requirements

• Data infrastructure fluency: You understand the modern data stack deeply—warehouses, ETL/ELT, reverse ETL, CDPs, and how data actually flows. You can hold your own in technical architecture discussions.
• Business user empathy: You've seen firsthand how powerful data capabilities fail to reach the people who need them. You're motivated by making complex things accessible.
• Activation domain expertise: Direct experience with reverse ETL, audience building, customer profiles/C360, or similar activation use cases. You know what good looks like.
• AI-native mindset: You're already using AI to move faster in your work and have a point of view on how AI will transform data activation. You're eager to explore and ship AI-native experiences.
• Bias toward shipping: You've operated in environments where you shipped quickly, learned from real usage, and iterated. You're allergic to process theater and lengthy planning cycles.
• Technical collaboration: You work directly with engineers as thought partners, not order-takers. You can sketch technical approaches and engage meaningfully on tradeoffs.
• Communication clarity: You write crisply, present compellingly, and can translate between technical and business audiences effortlessly.

Tech Stack

• ETL

Benefits

• Competitive compensation package with meaningful equity
• Comprehensive benefits and flexible PTO
• Significant autonomy to shape both the product and how we work
• High-impact role defining how business users experience the power of customer data
• An AI-first product org that values speed, experimentation, and customer outcomes over process