Director of Product Management

About nTop nTop builds parametric design software for the hardest geometry problems in aerospace, defense, and industrial turbomachinery. Our platform lets engineers define a design as a parametric program — a model that represents not one aircraft or turbine, but every variant of it that a program might need to consider. Customers use nTop to compress the journey from requirements to fielded systems, replacing years of iterative hand-modeling with systematic exploration across design spaces that were previously too large to search. Our product platform spans implicit modeling — a way of representing geometry so it can flex and update across thousands of design variants — GPU-accelerated physics simulation, optimization, and distributed computing. nTop provides a "batteries-included" end-to-end workflow from requirements to finished product, and also integrates with industry-standard CAD, CAE, PLM, and AI tools engineers already rely on. The Role This role reports to the CTO and leads a team of five: three Product Managers — for Modeling, Simulation & Optimization, and Distributed Computing — plus nTop's two-person UX design and research team. It's a foundational leadership seat: this person sets the operating cadence for three technical PM teams and owns the product point of view that ties their work together. What You'll Do Turn vision into a working system. Translate nTop's 2–5 year direction into concrete objectives, a resourcing plan, and a cadence the three teams follow. Coach product management as a craft, in the room. Sit directly in roadmap and tradeoff decisions with your three PMs, so their technical depth turns into product calls the business can act on. Set the criteria for when nTop builds, partners, or leaves a capability to the broader ecosystem — including how nTop positions its core geometry engine relative to the fast-growing physics-AI ecosystem. Own the seams between teams — the handoffs where geometry becomes a simulation mesh, where simulation results train faster surrogate models, and where both feed into the UX — plus the metrics that show whether the three teams are reinforcing each other. Meet with customers and stay connected to the broader industry to pressure-test direction against how design teams actually work, in a domain where mistakes are costly and hard to undo. Manage the UX design and research team directly. Represent Product Platform on nTop's leadership team and help set company strategy. What We're Looking For Must-haves 8–10+ years in product management, several of them spent coaching or managing other PMs directly — in the room for real prioritization and tradeoff calls, not just reviewing their output after the fact A track record of turning a leadership-defined, multi-year vision into concrete objectives and a working system a team can execute against — you'll operationalize the direction nTop's CTO sets, while owning real strategic calls within it, such as where nTop builds versus partners Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field — or, without the degree, hands-on experience running CFD simulations, working in CAD/PLM systems, or building simulation-driven engineering workflows deep enough to hold your own in a technical design review Experience managing managers or leading a product organization spanning multiple teams, including managing or closely partnering with a UX design and research function Demonstrated use of data and structured frameworks to guide build-vs-partner investment decisions Strong communication across technical and executive audiences Nice-to-haves Experience in aerospace, maritime, propulsion, industrial energy, or motorsports, ideally paired with exposure to usage-based or concurrent licensing models Advanced degree (MS/PhD) in a relevant engineering discipline, or an MBA Compensation The base pay range for this role is $225,000 – $260,000 per year.