Staff Product Manager

About the role

Muon Space is hiring a Staff Product Manager to own one to two product areas end-to-end. Depending on the candidate background and company need, that could be the spacecraft platform (the bus and its mission-configurable options), the RF and optical bits-to-ground data path (hardware and software to get data from satellite to ground), on-board high-performance compute, or our instrument portfolio.

Across any of these areas, you will own the roadmap and the productization decisions - architecture, capability tiering, SLAs, reuse-vs-customization, and (where applicable) pricing and packaging - that define how Muon scales commercially and operationally for years to come.

Reporting to the VP of Product, this is a deliberate Staff-level (L6) IC role. The work requires the seniority to make load-bearing commercial and architectural decisions, the technical fluency to engage with engineering and leadership as a peer, and the judgment to operate across multiple surfaces - hardware, software, operations, and go-to-market - without a team to delegate to.

This position is hybrid and requires working on-site in our San Jose, CA office three days per week.

Responsibilities

• Area ownership & strategy
• Own the strategy and multi-quarter roadmap for one to two large Muon product areas
• Define what is a reusable platform capability versus a mission- or customer-specific customization, and shape the architectural choices that make that distinction hold up across multiple missions and customers.
• Sequence the roadmap so Muon wins near-term deals while compounding reusable value for future ones.
• Define how success is measured for the area and hold the organization accountable to it.
• Productization & commercial decisions
• Own the productization decisions for your area. Drive the shift from bespoke, project-based commitments toward standardized, tiered offerings. This is a primary ROI vector for the role in every area.
• Concretely, depending on area:
• Spacecraft platform - define platform variants, standard interfaces, and the menu of options exposed to mission teams and customers; govern how the platform evolves across missions without fragmenting into one-offs.
• Bits-to-ground - define latency, availability, and throughput tiers end-to-end from downlink to delivery; align ground segment, pipeline, and storage investments against those commitments; set downlink prioritization policy across the constellation.
• On-board high-performance compute - define the on-board compute capability roadmap, the developer/SDK surface for mission payloads, and how on-board processing is exposed to internal mission teams and external customers (edge inference, on-board data reduction, tipping-and-cueing).
• Instruments - shape the instrument portfolio strategy: which capabilities are standardized, which are bespoke, how performance is specified and verified, and how new instruments are productized across missions.
• Customer & market insight
• Run customer and user discovery (external customers, internal mission teams, partners), gather structured feedback, and translate insights into roadmap decisions and productization experiments.
• Partner with Growth to analyze won/lost deals, identify product gaps and competitive advantages, and feed structured insights back into product and engineering investment.
• Track competitive and technology trends relevant to your area and keep the organization honest about where Muon leads, matches, or lags.
• Cross-functional partnership
• Partner closely with engineering across software, hardware, and operations
• Partner with the Growth org on deal structure, contract language, and the boundary between standardized packaging and bespoke commercial terms.
• Support Go-To-Market teams with sales enablement, technical documentation, RFP responses, customer demonstrations, and product positioning materials.
• Work with Marketing on product messaging, website content, case studies, whitepapers, and thought-leadership content that drives demand generation for Muon's portfolio.
• Collaborate with the VP of Product and the broader PM team on cross-area roadmap trade-offs, prioritization, and fundraising-aligned narrative.

Required Qualifications

• 8-10 years of Product Management experience, with demonstrated success owning complex, technically deep products that span hardware, software, and data systems.
• Track record of owning a large product area end-to-end including the architectural, productization, and commercial decisions that define it.
• Strong fluency working with platform, infrastructure, and systems engineering leadership
• Comfort operating as a Staff-level IC: making load-bearing decisions, writing crisp strategy documents, driving alignment across senior stakeholders, and executing without a team to delegate to.
• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, or a related technical field; advanced degree preferred.

Nice-to-have Skills

• Familiarity with space systems and LEO constellations - spacecraft platforms, instruments, ground segment, remote sensing or satellite data pipelines.
• Previous experience deploying or scaling a Product function within a space, defense, or deep-tech company.
• Prior experience in startup or high-growth technology environments.

Salary

The salary range for this role is $243,000 - $274,000, plus a competitive equity grant and comprehensive benefits package. Final compensation will be determined based on skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic location as assessed during the interview process.

Muon is currently registered and able to hire in the following states

AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, IL, IA, ID, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA

ITAR/EAR Requirements

This position requires access to export controlled information.

To conform to U.S. Government export regulations applicable to that information, applicant must either be (A) a U.S. person, defined as a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (green card holder), (iii) refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, (B) eligible to access the export controlled information without a required export authorization, or (C) eligible and reasonably likely to obtain the required export authorization from the applicable U.S. government agency.

The Company may, for legitimate business reasons, decline to pursue any export licensing process.