The posting
Convex is the difference between coding and engineering. As app development becomes commoditized and the nature of applications changes, coding agents need a backend platform that codifies good systems design principles and is accountable for simplicity, correctness, scale and performance so that teams are able to build the applications of tomorrow. This is a very difficult product challenge: Convex needs to be incredibly easy to use both for agents and humans, but has to impose the right constraints that ensure that applications actually work and scale over the lifetime of a company. We’re looking for a product lead to help us shape the agentic/developer experience for the next chapter of Convex.
The Team: https://convex.dev/about-us
Convex has assembled a team of engineers who have built and designed some of the largest platforms in the world, with exabytes of data, millions of transactions per second, and shipped desktop and mobile software onto billions of devices. We are a group of friendly, collaborative, and passionate people that love working in-person together in our office in San Francisco.
The Role:
Our team is exceptional at solving hard technical problems. We're looking for our second product manager to make sure we solve the right ones. You'll own full product areas end to end, working alongside our CTO and engineers who have built some of the largest platforms in the world.
This isn't a role where you just manage a backlog. Some days you'll be on calls with customers to understand why their team is spinning up hundreds of deployments. Other days you'll dig through usage data, write a crisp spec for a new platform API, or help our Heads of GTM and Marketing explain a new capability to developers.
What You'll Do:
- Own one or more product areas of the Convex platform (e.g., our AI gateway, platform APIs, the component ecosystem). Alongside the founders, you’ll set their roadmap with the founders.
- Talk to customers every week. Turn what you learn into clear problem statements, specs and prioritization calls.
- Define and instrument the metrics for your areas, and use data to decide what's working.
- Work closely with engineers from design through launch.
- Partner with the GTM team on launches and messaging for your areas and our support team to define the product roadmap.
- Bring your own read on what developers and agents need. Push back when you think we're wrong.
What Excites Us:
- Minimum 2–4 years as a PM at a technical or developer-facing company, or 2–4 years as a software engineer who wants to move into product.
- A CS degree, or equivalent hands-on engineering experience. You should be comfortable reading code, using a CLI, and having real technical tradeoff discussions.
- You've shipped something you're proud of and can explain why it was the right thing to build.
- You are comfortable doing user interviews, writing product specs, and performing data analysis.
- Clear, simple writing.
- Bonus: Hands-on experience with TypeScript and/or modern web development technologies.
- Interest in working in person at our SF office.
IDEAL CHARACTERISTICS
This is an attempt to outline some characteristics of people who tend to thrive at Convex. We have a high demand for conceptual thought and architectural sensibilities, while also having the typical demands of a small startup.
DO THEY UNDERSTAND DEVELOPER PRODUCTS?
Developer tools are different. Your users are technical, skeptical, and are quick to spot inauthenticity. Positioning that works for a business app falls flat here. We want someone who has internalized what it feels like to be a developer evaluating a product, who understands why "it just works" is both harder to achieve and more important than it sounds.
HAVE THEY DEVELOPED TASTE FOR GREAT PRODUCTS?
The best PMs we've encountered have a strong point of view on what good looks like and a track record of pushing for it. Not just identifying problems but caring enough to fight for the right solution. We want someone who has shipped things they're genuinely proud of and holds a high bar for what that means.
CAN THEY TURN AMBIGUITY INTO ACTION?
A lot of this job is turning a vague problem into something real. We want someone who doesn't need a clean brief to get moving. They can sit with ambiguity, make a call, and carry it through design, build, and launch. The best PMs here measure themselves by what shipped, not by how good the plan looked.
DO THEY VALUE SIMPLICITY AND CLARITY?
The best product thinking is simple. Simple positioning, simple prioritization, simple explanations of hard problems. We have a bias toward doing fewer things better and want a PM who has that bias too. Someone who can make a complicated product decision feel obvious in retrospect.
DO THEY KNOW HOW TO WORK WITH FOUNDERS?
Founders have to move fast, often hold strong opinions, and need to think ahead of the market. Working well in that environment means knowing when to push back, being direct without being difficult, and building trust through good judgment rather than process. This person will spend a lot of time with our founding team and needs to thrive in that dynamic. Although to be honest we’re a pretty friendly founder team.
DO THEY BRING ENERGY TO THE ROOM?
Startups are hard. Building something from nothing is hard. Driving forward progress despite uncertainty is hard. Shitting on stuff is easy and just brings everyone else down. We have a high bar for quality but also a high bar for being constructive, positive, and excited about making things better. We're meant to be having fun here.
*The salary range for this full-time position is >$170,000 + equity + benefits
