Product Manager / Former Founder, New Initiative

ABOUT CARTESIA Our mission is to architect AI that learns from and interacts with the world like humans do. We're pioneering the model architectures that will make this possible. Our founding team met as PhDs at the Stanford AI Lab, where we invented State Space Models or SSMs, a new primitive for training efficient, large-scale foundation models. Our team combines deep expertise in model innovation and systems engineering paired with a design-minded product engineering team to build and ship cutting edge models and experiences. We're funded by leading investors at Index Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners, along with Factory, Conviction, A Star, General Catalyst, SV Angel, Databricks and others. We're fortunate to have the support of many amazing advisors, and 90+ angels across many industries, including the world's foremost experts in AI. About the Role Cartesia is hiring a Product Manager to lead a new initiative at the company — a 0→1 product effort building on top of our foundation models. We're looking for someone to operate as the CEO of this initiative. This is not a traditional PM role. We're looking for someone who has already lived the 0→1 loop — customer discovery, building, selling — and who can set the pace for a squad of researchers, engineers, designers, and GTM partners. You'll own the initiative end to end and report directly to the Head of Product. You'll be the dedicated PM on this product, with the scope to shape strategy, run discovery, spar with research, and push deals to close alongside GTM. Your Impact - Own the initiative's roadmap, strategy, and execution pace — translate customer evidence into strong, opinionated bets and kill work that isn't worth doing - Shape go-to-market alongside the GTM team, from positioning to pricing to which segments we go after first - Run customer discovery personally and partner with GTM to close the early wave of customers - Drive cross-functional alignment across research, engineering, design, and GTM as a peer — without relying on formal authority - Become a credible external voice for Cartesia through writing, talks, and customer-facing thought leadership What You Bring - Founder experience: you have founded (or been founding PM at) a B2B SaaS, AI, or developer-tools startup and personally taken a 0→1 product into market — living the full loop of customer discovery → building → selling - Execution velocity and ownership: a deep bias to ship, comfort with ambiguity, and a track record of setting the pace for the people around you; you treat blockers as personal problems to solve - Deep working knowledge of modern AI/ML systems and the tradeoffs that matter in production — or a clear track record of getting to expert-level in a technical domain within weeks - Customer-led and sales-comfortable: you've personally driven early customer acquisition at a previous company, can run a discovery call solo, walk a technical buyer through architecture, and push a deal to close alongside GTM - Product taste paired with technical depth: you can spar with research and engineering on model behavior, eval design, and architecture, with strong opinions grounded in customer evidence - Cross-functional leadership without authority: you've led R&D + GTM + design as a founder and can do it again here as a peer; a strong written communicator who produces primers, narratives, and POVs that travel on their own Nice to Have - Already a credible external voice in applied AI — or clearly capable of becoming one and excited to - Built a real-time or applied AI product previously - Prior PM time at a high-velocity AI lab or infra company (Anthropic, OpenAI, etc.) - Technical degree or prior engineering experience MORE DETAILS 🏢 In-office policy: We’re an in-person team based out of offices in 🇺🇸 San Francisco, 🇬🇧 London and 🇮🇳 Bangalore We love being in the office, hanging out together, and learning from each other every day. 🌎 Visa sponsorship: We provide visa sponsorship support and assess each circumstance on a case-by-case basis. However, visa sponsorship is dependent on many factors, including the role you are applying for, and the location you are going to be based, and so we can't always guarantee success. Your Recruiter will work with you to understand your visa sponsorship needs from the first call. 🚢 We ship fast. All of our work is novel and cutting edge, and execution speed is paramount. We have a high bar, and we don’t sacrifice quality or design along the way. 🤝 We support each other. We have an open & inclusive culture that’s focused on giving everyone the resources they need to succeed. OUR BENEFITS 💰 Compensation. Competitive base salary alongside attractive equity package. 🚆 Commuter Allowance. A monthly stipend to help you get to and from the office. 🏖️ Flexible PTO. Take as much time as you need to recharge your batteries. 🍲