Product manager EDA

Bright Lights is an innovative organisation that brings gifted talent together to create powerful solutions for complex or important business challenges.

With us, gifted professionals get the chance to develop to their full potential through challenging assignments, inspiring interactions with like-minded peers, strategic workshops and individual coaching. Does this resonate with you? Then read on. Still in doubt, for example about whether you are gifted? Then we invite you to get in touch so we can explore this together.

Your role

Which problems do hardware engineers and their AI agents really need solved? Which customer requests deserve priority? How do you turn market insight into a clear product direction?

As Product manager EDA, you work on these questions for a fast-growing company that develops design and verification software for digital chips. You form the bridge between the market and Engineering and translate customer needs, market insight and technical possibilities into a product strategy, roadmap and priorities. You report directly to the CEO.

Why this role suits gifted professionals

This role asks you to think in systems. You connect the workflows of hardware designers, the possibilities of AI, the technical constraints of Engineering and the commercial reality of Sales into one coherent product direction.

You look past the feature request to the problem underneath it, which suits professionals who like to understand why before deciding how.

You get real autonomy: you have decisive influence on product strategy and the roadmap and you help shape how product management works within the company. The field moves quickly, with continuous developments in EDA, semiconductors, FPGA and AI, so there is always more to learn.

You do all of this in a challenging and international environment: you work with Fortune Global 500 customers and with partners in countries such as India, Japan and South Korea. You also meet the market in person at conferences and customer visits.

Your responsibilities

• You talk to customers and prospects to understand their workflows, challenges and needs. You complete that picture with insights from your colleagues in Engineering, Innovation, Marketing and Sales.
• You look beyond specific feature requests and search for the underlying problem.
• You translate market insight into a product strategy, roadmap, commercial product specifications and priorities. Based on these decisions, you steer the management and prioritisation of the backlog.
• You weigh decisions on customer value, strategic relevance, technical feasibility and contribution to the product’s success in the market.
• You work closely with Engineering, Sales and Marketing and make sure their activities stay aligned with the product priorities.
• You define the scope of releases based on the roadmap and the backlog. After each release, you check whether the new functionality delivers the intended value.
• You keep track of developments in EDA, semiconductors, FPGA and AI.

Your strengths

• You bring experience in product management at a technology company or in a technology sector.
• You bring experience in at least two of the following areas: hands-on VHDL, hands-on SystemVerilog, EDA, FPGA, semiconductors, embedded systems, developer tools or IDEs. Have you worked in ASIC development with SystemVerilog? Do you know from your own practice what design engineers and verification engineers need from their tools? That is a strong plus.
• Do you have a proven track record in product management in the high-tech sector and experience in only one of these areas? Then we would still like to hear from you.
• Your technical insight allows you to hold a conversation with semiconductor hardware designers, software engineers, project leaders and their CAD managers.
• You are AI-savvy and curious about how AI agents change the way engineers design and verify chips.
• You have worked with customer discovery and the value proposition canvas. You know how to translate customer needs and the workflow of HDL designers into product priorities. You have also helped build a customer- and market-oriented culture.
• You combine strategic thinking with a pragmatic approach, strong organisational and problem-solving skills and a clear focus on results. You make the call on product vision and on how the product should work in the hands of customers and agents, without getting caught up in UI details.
• Communication and leadership are at the heart of this role. You listen well to customers, development, sales and support, you understand different points of view and you actively seek consensus. When consensus does not come, you make a well-founded choice and communicate it diplomatically, also to people who would have preferred another direction.
• You ask questions before you draw conclusions. You listen to customers without following every request and you can say no when something does not fit the product strategy.
• You have a strong sense of ownership, an entrepreneurial mindset and an excellent command of English.
• You are willing to travel about 35 days a year, or 15 to 20% of your time. This includes at least three conferences of about a week each and around ten customer visits, mainly in Europe and occasionally in the United States or other regions. You like to make the most of each trip.

What we offer

Our approach is tailored to gifted professionals, with guidance in personal leadership and entrepreneurship, access to a community of like-minded people, expert groups, inspiration sessions and workshops. We screen your work environment and our assignments for sufficient complexity and room for autonomy.

You can count on flexible hours, hybrid work and direct collaboration with Engineering, Sales, Marketing and the market itself.

Our culture

At Bright Lights, we believe that collaboration leads to better solutions. Our culture is built on integrity, growth and development. We strengthen each other’s talents and put ourselves at the service of others: we shine a light on the challenges, not on ourselves.

Interested?

You can only apply via our website: https://www.brightlights.house/en/career/

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