Technical Product Manager

tl;dr: we’re hiring a hands-on, technical builder to help us scale our product to hundreds of customers:

• You will need to embody opposite traits. On one hand, diving deep into the technical nuances of source systems, building data models, and translating complex business logic to our engineers. On the other, working 1:1 with customers to define their requirements, onboard them, run demo meetings, negotiate deliverables, and more.
• You will interface daily between our engineers, customers, and partners (the systems we integrate with). Since we're early stage, we expect you to be a strong generalist.
• No need to have familiarity with construction.

Why join us?

• Early-stage, yet de-risked: we are a rare combo of being early stage (high upside) but lower risk (2XX+ paying customers, $Xm+ recurring revenue, cash-flow positive for over a year, hockey-stick growth). You get the benefits of an early stage startup without the risk you’ll have at almost any other startup. You’ll have a ton of impact, work directly with our customers, and get to work on interesting technical challenges you won’t see at bigger companies. Although we’re early stage, we’ve eliminated key strategic risks you’ll face at other startups. Like an unproven product, lack of market validation, lack of revenue, over-reliance on VC funding, co-founder disputes. We’re all young and hungry. Our team is fully in-person, tenacious, and committed - most of us moved to SF from far away (Canada, SoCal, Texas, Virginia) specifically to build Agave from the ground up.
• Team is technical, diverse, young: you'll work with a formidable founding team that's experienced, intense, and ambitious. We've worked together for 10 years, first at a startup that Amazon acquired, then at Amazon, and now at Agave. You'll learn a ton while having outsized ownership. You’ll have a front-row seat to the good and bad of building a company from the ground up. We’re also technical - all but 1 of our team (our AE!) have either majored in CS, worked as full-time devs, and/or worked in technical roles at startups and larger tech companies for 5+ years before moving into business roles at Agave.
• Huge opportunity without direct competition: startups are incredibly hard, so you want to join one that has a unique advantage. You don’t want to spend years of your life on a company in a saturated market with tons of competition. We’re seizing an opportunity that’s massive (Construction is the world’s third-largest industry) but also overlooked by most people in startup land. Most who can solve this problem aren’t aware it exists or are too distracted by tech trends (blockchain, metaverse, LLMs, etc.) to notice. These talented folks get coaxed into building products that seem cool early on, but don’t solve durable problems or aren’t differentiated enough against their many competitors to be sustainable (e.g. lots of AI products), so they end-up not going anywhere or stagnating without a clear plan to grow profitably. As a result, we have a multi-year head start against potential competitors, increasing our odds of success significantly. We’re also backed by world-class investors (Accel, YC) and Construction insiders (Procore and Autodesk executives, founders of the largest construction tech companies like PlanGrid).

Responsibilities

• Investigate new source systems to integrate with (data models, business logic, APIs, etc.) and become our go-to subject matter expert on each. It’s part product, part data analysis, and part archeology.
• Research and define the structure for new data models we launch (schemas, interrelations with other models, how to standardize each across dozens of systems, etc.).
• Write detailed documentation (e.g. runbooks, FAQs) explaining source systems, data models, and API features for internal reference and for our customers to use self-service.
• Troubleshoot ad hoc issues with integrations and data models, helping our software engineers debug and resolve errors, and unblock our customers from launches and expansions.
• Build and own customer and partner relationships. Work end to end with both software startups and construction companies, from sales/demos to scoping requirements, from onboarding to roll-out.
• Translate customer needs to detailed product requirements our software engineers can code against.
• Assist sales team in customer demos, showing product functionality, refining customer requirements, and driving toward winning their business.
• No need to have: prior experience with Construction or at B2B SaaS/dev tools companies

Requirements

• Hands-on: you'll be a full-time builder, not a manager. You must love operating in the messy weeds of nuanced systems, understanding their complexity and simplifying it for our customers. You will focus on product execution and delivery, less on strategy and market research.
• Technical: no need to code, but you must have at least 1 year experience working closely with APIs, databases, SQL, Postman, and similar tools. The more, the better.
• 1+ year experience in software: at least 1 year of full-time experience working for a software company in a data analyst, product, or other technical role. We’re open to exceptional new grads with substantive internships. We want someone hungry and has lots of room to grow, who's ready to roll-up their sleeves and operate in the trenches.
• High ownership + conscientiousness: able to manage many threads at once without sacrificing quality.
• Meticulous attention to detail: structured thinker who nerds-out on nuances, accounts for edge cases, and tests your work thoroughly before calling it done.
• Clear + concise communication: oral and written, must love writing crisp docs for internal + external reference.
• Uncanny ability to deliver results: get the job done consistently, doing any task needed to deliver on time.
• Comfortable wth customers: able to work with a wide range of customers, spanning software engineers at startups to CFOs at specialty contractors. Can onboard new customers, run demo meetings, negotiate timelines, and communicate clearly over Slack, Zoom, and email.
• In-person: pumped to work in-person in SF 5 days per week.
• Nice to have:
  • Experience interfacing with customers (e.g. running user interviews, demoing SaaS products).
  • Experience building technical products (e.g. APIs, developer tools) alongside software engineers and shipping products on tight timelines.
  • Knowledge of basic accounting, since many of our use-cases relate to automating financial workflows.

What’s the difference between our TPM and SE roles?

• While there is overlap in the roles, each role has unique responsibilities.
• Our TPM role is more focused on product development and customers after they sign, e.g.
  • researching new source systems and building new API endpoints/workflows
  • developing new features in close collaboration with our SWEs
  • managing and improving our customer onboarding process
• Our SE role is more focused on helping Sales close new customers, e.g.
  • leading demo calls and answering technical questions during sales process
  • creating and improving collateral to use in sales process (e.g. call scripts, demo videos)
  • attending and learning from customer onboardings to improve our upstream sales processes

Benefits

• Healthcare: we cover 90% of your healthcare costs with several plan options.
• 401k: we match 100% of your contributions, up to 4% of annual salary.
• Relocation: sizable relocation bonus for folks currently located outside of the Bay Area.
• Gym: on-site gym with Peloton, squat rack, Tempo, Yoga setup, and more.
• Visa: we sponsor Visas (H1B, TN, etc.) for candidates who are a good fit!

In-Person

• We've built Agave in-person since day 1, and will maintain an in-person culture in San Francisco going forward. We form tighter bonds, build a stronger culture, and move faster since we're all working from one location.
• Our office is just west of Twin Peaks, 1 block from a bus stop, 10min walk from a BART station, and a 5min drive off the 101 and 280. Our entire team commutes here every day. We believe building in-person is a huge strategic advantage, and we hope you’ll join us.

At each stage, we decide and update you within 24hrs:

1. Intro (15min.) [Virtual]: informal chat for you to learn more about the role. We'll ask for details on your past projects and what you're looking for next. We want to know that you meet our basic requirements and can speak about your work clearly. You’re welcome to ask lots of questions about whether working at Agave makes sense for you.
2. Writing Exercise (30min.) [Virtual]: we provide a short prompt that you reply to in a Google Doc. Our goal is to quickly decide whether you can write clearly, with minimum time investment required from you.
3. Experience (30min.) [Virtual]: we'll dive into the details of your recent work experience, asking questions to learn about what you've done. Our goal is to ensure you've worked on sufficiently complex projects to confirm you'll be successful if you join us full-time. We'll also reserve 10min to answer any questions you have about Agave.
4. Case Study (60min.) [Virtual]: we'll provide a product-related case study that you'll prepare asynchronously. You'll submit your response and we'll review it with you on a 60min call.
5. On-site (60min. x 5 people) [In-Person in SF, we pay for travel]: you'll interview with each co-founder and our lead dev. This will be a deeper dive into your experience, technical fluency, and overall fit. Each interview is 1hr, 45min for our questions and 15min for yours.