Chief Product Officer

Chief Product Officer (CPO) Preferred starting date: ASAP Weekly availability: Full-time (40 hours/week) Location: Delft, the Netherlands (hybrid Report to: CEO About the company Fiducial is a young but fast-growing deep-tech start-up with big ambitions at the frontier of autonomy, perception, and defence. Currently, we are developing software for advanced on-board UAV situational awareness in military applications. Using low-cost and widely available sensors and compute, our solutions are built for scalability. From there, we plan to develop a line-up of interconnected solutions to safeguard European safety. Our team consists of engineers that are passionate about the technology and solutions they develop. The only time most of us are not thinking about the technology is when we are asleep, and sometimes even then. Our team members have a background in different fields such as Aerospace Engineering, Computational Science and Engineering, Robotics and Computer Graphics. Our office is located in the Aerospace Innovation Hub, a start-up hub located on the TU Delft campus in the faculty of Aerospace Engineering. We work closely with top-tier partners, ranging from government agencies and prime contractors to academic research institutes and other start-ups. Our projects span from large tender orders in collaboration with partners to low TRL research with government agencies. Whether through formal R&D programs or rapid prototyping tracks, we operate at the intersection of innovation and deployment. Your role As Chief Product Officer, you own the connection between what the market and our operators need and what we build. You are the bridge between customers, commercial, and engineering, turning field feedback and market insight into a clear product strategy, a coherent portfolio, and a roadmap the whole company can rally behind. You define how our capabilities become products: how they are packaged, priced, taken to market, and adopted by the people who use them in the field. This is a hands-on leadership role in a young company. You set product direction alongside the founders, and you also do the work: talking to users, shaping requirements, and making the calls that decide what we build next and why. As we grow, you build and lead the product function. Key Responsibilities • Product vision & strategy. Owning and articulating a company-wide product strategy tied to our mission and keeping it alive as the market and the technology evolve. • Product roadmap ownership. Owning the product roadmap and prioritization across the portfolio, balancing customer-driven delivery against longer-term platform and R&D initiatives. • Market-to-technical bridge. Translating operator needs, market signals, and partner requirements into clear direction for engineering, and translating technical capability back into value the market understands. • Portfolio management. Managing the breadth of the product portfolio: how our capabilities in detection, navigation, interception, and beyond fit together as a modular, scalable ecosystem rather than isolated tools. • User experience & adoption. Owning how usable our products are for end users: ease of use, onboarding, training, documentation, and the adoption path from first deployment to routine operational use. • Pricing & business model. Defining pricing, packaging, and business models across the portfolio, and owning the product side of the classic marketing mix (the 4Ps). • Go-to-market. Partnering with commercial and business development to shape and execute go-to-market for each capability, from positioning and narrative to capability briefs and demos. • Market intelligence. Mapping the market continuously: trends, competitors, adjacent opportunities, and where the next product bets should be. • Regulatory & compliance interface. Given the defence context, factoring export control, procurement, and relevant standards into product decisions, working with the right internal and external stakeholders. • Building the function. As we scale, hiring, mentoring, and leading a product team, and putting lightweight product processes in place that fit a fast-moving deep-tech company. What you will deliver in your first year • A clear, documented product strategy and roadmap, aligned with the founders and understood across the company. • A defined product portfolio structure across our capability lines, with clear ownership and priorities. • A working feedback loop that turns field and operational insight into product decisions. • Pricing and business-model proposals for the core product lines. • A joint go-to-market plan with commercial for at least one capability, taken through to execution. • Measurable improvement in product adoption and usability through better onboarding, documentation, and training for operators and partners. • A market map and opportunity assessment that informs the next set of product bets. What we expect from you • 8+ years in product, with a senior track record owning product strategy, roadmap, and portfolio in a technical product environment. • Experience across the startup-to-scale-up journey, and ideally the step beyond, with the judgment to know what a company needs at each stage. • A strong bridgebuilder: you connect customers and market reality to engineering, and you are comfortable in deeply technical conversations without being the engineer yourself. • Demonstrated ownership of pricing, packaging, and business models (the product side of the 4Ps). • Experience shaping and executing go-to-market together with commercial teams. • A user-obsessed mindset: you care about adoption, usability, training, and documentation, not only features. • The ability to map a market, read trends, and turn them into concrete product opportunities. • Comfort operating hands-on in a small, fast-moving team while also setting long-term direction. • Strong communication and stakeholder skills, from the field and the shop floor to founders, partners, and government stakeholders. • Full-time availability. Nice to have • Domain experience in defence, drones/UAV, aerospace, or other dual-use or high-stakes technology. A real plus, but not a must. • Experience navigating regulated environments and their impact on product, such as export control, procurement, certification, or standards. • Experience building and leading a product team from an early stage. We know this exact combination is rare. If you have a strong track record of building products that reached real users and shaped a company’s direction, and the judgment to navigate the rest, we want to talk. What we offer • A seat at the leadership table, shaping the direction of the company alongside the founders. • A meaningful equity stake. We want the people building the company to own part of it. • Competitive compensation. • 25 vacation days per year. • Reimbursed travel expenses and company laptop. • (Really) flexible working hours, with a hybrid setup around our Delft office. • Working in an international, world-class team of engineers and entrepreneurs solving real-life problems with technology that matters. • The rare opportunity to define the product function of a deep-tech defence company from an early stage, and to see what you build deployed in environments where it genuinely counts. The application procedure • If after reading the above you are convinced you are the right person for the job, send us some information about yourself. This can be a resume, LinkedIn, or other source, as long as we get a clear picture of your background and track record. • We'll get back to you as soon as possible. If we see a potential fit, we'll set up an initial conversation, followed by deeper sessions with the founders and leadership team where we work through real product scenarios together. • If at this point we feel you are the person we are looking for, we'll discuss the specifics. • Welcome to the team!