Forward Deployed Product Manager

The Machine is the agentic operating system for marketing, built by Code and Theory. It plugs into the tools marketing teams use and turns disconnected workflows into a single intelligent system, connecting brand strategy, creative production, and media performance. The Machine helps power agencies across Stagwell's network and world-leading brands.

We're looking for a Forward Deployed Product Manager who will be embedded directly in implementation pods, turning client and internal needs into clear, actionable product requirements during platform rollouts. This person bridges product, delivery, and implementation teams throughout rollout — defining workflows, prototyping solutions, and shaping how The Machine's agents behave in real-world use.

They own discrete work streams end-to-end, translating ambiguous business needs into structured requirements that implementation engineers can act on without dropping specificity along the way. They're comfortable moving between client context, product thinking, and delivery realities, and are increasingly the person who creates structure where none exists rather than waiting for someone else to define it.

• Gather and clarify business requirements directly from clients and internal stakeholders during implementations
• Translate ambiguous workflows into structured requirements, user stories, and briefs that a delivery team can work from
• Prototype flows, prompts, and lightweight solutions to validate direction quickly, before investing in full builds
• Partner with Technical Account Managers to keep implementations moving and unblock decisions in real time
• Work closely with implementation engineers to refine solutions in-market as real usage surfaces new edge cases
• Identify recurring workflow patterns across deployments and feed them back into the core product roadmap
• Document decisions, edge cases, and process changes as the team learns, so knowledge doesn't live in one person's head
• Support discovery, solution design, and handoff across multiple concurrent deployments
• Identify and proactively communicate risks, blockers, and trade-offs as they emerge
• Stay current with modern AI tooling and bring new prototyping and prompting techniques back into the team's practice

• 2–5 years of experience in product management, business analysis, solutions consulting, forward-deployed, or implementation roles — ideally from a startup, SaaS, or technical services environment
• A track record of owning work streams independently and delivering high-quality work on complex, ambiguous projects with limited supervision
• Strong systems thinking and workflow intuition, with the judgment to make good calls on incomplete information
• Hands-on comfort with prototyping, prompting, and workflow design using modern AI tools — you're technical and curious, not just directionally aware
• Excellent communication skills, able to move fluidly between technical and non-technical stakeholders and between client context and internal delivery realities
• High ownership and a bias to action — you're more likely to write the playbook than wait for one
• Experience working in collaborative, cross-functional environments spanning product, delivery, and engineering

Born in 2001, Code and Theory is a digital-first creative agency that sits at the center of creativity and technology. We pride ourselves on not only solving consumer and business problems, but also helping to establish new capabilities for our clients. With a global client roster of Fortune 100s and start-ups alike, we crave the hardest problems to solve. We have teams distributed across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia.

The Code and Theory global network of agencies is growing and includes Kettle,…