Product Manager - DefenseOS

Product Manager for DefenseOS

As a Product Manager for DefenseOS, you will own the product vision, strategy, and roadmap for a defense operating system derived directly from Applied Intuition's commercial automotive VehicleOS product, as the product peer to a director-level engineering lead. You will drive the product through customer discovery, requirements definition, prioritization, and close partnership with engineering, design, and operations — owning outcomes through influence rather than managing a team.

As the first instantiation of this broadly applicable defense product, you will own the product for a navy warship operating system that integrates combat systems, communications systems, and hull, mechanical, and electrical (HM&E) systems on unmanned surface vessels and traditional surface combatants. A central part of the work is shaping the product strategy for a zonal architecture — location-based zone controllers and centralized compute replacing a federated, domain-based design — and defining how it integrates with existing defense-unique systems built by primes that were not delivered with modernized software and data interfaces.

Your work will influence the scope, sequencing, field-readiness, and adoption of the DefenseOS product.

This is an individual-contributor role: you own the product and drive outcomes through influence across engineering, design, and operations — without direct reports.

• Own the product vision, strategy, and roadmap for DefenseOS — defining how Applied's commercial VehicleOS is adapted into a navy warship operating system, the first instantiation of this broadly applicable defense product.
• Lead customer and user discovery directly with Navy program offices, operators, and crews to translate operational needs, acquisition requirements, and field constraints into a prioritized product roadmap.
• Define the product strategy for a zonal architecture — location-based zone controllers and centralized compute replacing a federated, domain-based design — including how it integrates with existing defense-unique systems built by primes that lack modernized software and data interfaces; decide what to bridge, in what sequence, and where to build versus partner.
• Write clear requirements, define success metrics, and make the prioritization and scope trade-offs that keep engineering focused on the highest-value, field-relevant work.
• Partner closely with engineering, hardware/integration, and operations to sequence delivery across simulation, integration lab, and live-platform testing on unmanned surface vessels and traditional surface combatants.
• Own the trade-offs between speed, quality, and scope under acquisition and field constraints.
• Work with design to shape operator interfaces and workflows grounded in how crews actually operate.
• Partner with defense customers and shipbuilders/integrators as a design-informed product lead, translating their needs into the roadmap.
• Communicate product strategy, status, risk, and trade-offs to senior leadership and external stakeholders, and provide product input into program and business decisions.
• Build the feedback loops — usage signals, customer input, and program data — that justify investment and shape the roadmap over time.

• Bachelor's degree in a technical field (Computer Science, Engineering, or related) or equivalent experience; advanced degree or deep technical background a plus.
• 8+ years of product management experience shipping complex technical products, including owning a product line end to end, ideally platforms spanning both hardware and software, real-time/embedded, or systems-of-systems.
• Demonstrated ability to own a product end to end as an individual contributor: vision, roadmap, requirements, prioritization, launch, and iteration against measurable outcomes.
• Thrives as an IC — comfortable owning a product area and driving cross-functional outcomes through influence rather than managing direct reports.
• Strong technical literacy — enough to engage credibly with engineers on architecture trade-offs (e.g., zonal versus federated domain architectures, hardware/software integration, interfaces and…