VP of Product Management
(Consumer AI, Personalization & Privacy)
Compensation: Competitive package
Location: Palo Alto, CA — on-site five days per week
The Company
A well-funded, venture-backed AI startup is building a new consumer personalization platform designed to make digital experiences dramatically more useful without compromising user control over personal data. Led by experienced repeat founders, the company combines modern AI with a privacy-first approach to personal context and personalization.
The Opportunity
This is the founding product leadership hire at a point where the technical foundations are in place and the wider product is ready to be shaped. You will have significant ownership over what gets built, which consumer use cases matter and how the platform evolves from an early product into something used at scale.
The Role
You will own product direction while staying extremely close to the work. This is not a process-heavy management position: you will prototype, define experiences, work directly with engineers, make hard prioritization calls and establish the product standards the company scales around.
What You’ll Do
Own the product vision, roadmap and prioritization for a new AI-powered consumer platform.
Identify and develop compelling consumer use cases for personalized experiences across multiple categories.
Prototype new ideas rapidly and turn ambiguous concepts into clear product requirements and experiences.
Partner closely with engineering to build, test, iterate and ship high-quality product at zero-to-one speed.
Design intuitive experiences around personalization, user preferences, privacy and control.
Shape how the underlying consumer platform can be packaged for enterprise distribution through APIs, integrations and administrative tooling.
Establish lightweight product practices and success measures without introducing unnecessary process.
What You’ll Bring
Strong experience building consumer products with a clear point of view on UX, product craft and what creates genuine user value.
A track record of building at least one meaningful product from zero to one within an early-stage or similarly high-ownership environment.
Enough technical depth to work effectively with strong engineers and reason about AI-powered products, APIs and platform trade-offs.
Fluency with modern AI-assisted product and prototyping workflows, with the willingness to build and test ideas yourself.
Excellent judgment around prioritization, including knowing when to ship, when to iterate and what not to build.
A highly hands-on, detail-oriented operating style with strong ownership and minimal reliance on structure or hierarchy.
Clear communication and the ability to align founders, engineers, designers and future enterprise partners around product decisions.
What This Role Requires
Meaningful early-stage startup experience with genuine zero-to-one product ownership.
Deep consumer product experience and demonstrably strong product instincts.
Practical familiarity with modern AI products and AI-assisted building or prototyping tools.
The ability and willingness to operate hands-on rather than purely as a people or process manager.
Ability to work on-site in Palo Alto five days per week.
Why Join
Own product at the point where an ambitious technical foundation needs to become an exceptional consumer experience.
Work on a genuinely difficult product problem spanning AI, personalization, privacy and platform architecture.
Join a well-backed early-stage company led by experienced operators while retaining the scope and influence of a true founding product role.
About People in AI
People in AI is a specialist recruitment partner connecting exceptional AI, machine learning, data, and engineering talent with some of the most ambitious technology companies in the world. We work closely with founders, technical leaders, and hiring teams to represent opportunities accurately and help candidates assess genuine fit.
