Product Manager, Platform

About Us:

Light Labs is creating the new standard for modern lab testing. With the latest in sample preparation, testing instrumentation, and data automation, our goal is to be the fastest growing testing lab in the world.

Role Overview:

Lab testing historically is slow, expensive, and fraught with miscommunication. Light Labs is stepping in to close this gap. Our testing platform is revolutionizing the customer experience for manufacturers and brands across the globe, and we are looking for someone who can jump in and own the existing platform capabilities.

We are looking for someone who can sit with customers, understand their needs, and translate those needs into a 12/10 experience. You’ll be supporting brands like Grüns, IM8, David, and Seed Health complete their product testing quickly and with unparalleled clarity.

Success at six months: platform triage and releases run with limited oversight, and customer-facing changes ship with clear guidance for both internal and external parties. You’ve worked with our engineering team to streamline and drive our SDLC process, and stakeholders are aware of our near term roadmap

As you show results, your scope grows toward owning platform areas and, over time, the platform. The role is based in Austin, TX. Day to day, you’ll work with engineering, the lab team, and customer support. This role reports to the product lead and works closely with the team in person.

Responsibilities:

• Own and deliver new features to our core testing platform.

• Work with engineering to scope and deliver outcomes for our customers

• Ensure the highest quality bar for our releases

• Drive feature adoption and business outcomes by owning communications around feature releases

• Work hands on with engineering, prioritizing the development patterns to move at maximum velocity

• Prototype and build product changes to get early buy-in from customers and internal stakeholders

• Collaborate with other teams across the organization to ensure the best possible outcomes for our customers

• Learn how CPG brands and contract manufacturers use the platform by working closely with the support and lab teams

Qualifications:

• 1 to 3 years of experience on B2B software platforms, in product management or 2 to 4 years in an adjacent role such as product operations, business analysis, QA, support engineering, or implementation

• Experience writing clear specs and acceptance criteria that engineers can build and test against

• Experience working with engineers every day, including reproducing bugs in a web app

• Comfortable working large datasets to make informed decisions

• Strong written communication and steady follow-through on the work you own

• Clear understanding and competency with AI tools

If you don’t match every line but the role fits you, we still encourage you to apply.

Benefits:

• Top decile salary

• Equity in the business

• Health, dental, and vision insurance

• Paid time off and holidays

• Promote from within approach – career growth opportunities

• Relocation to ATX available for qualified candidates

Who We Are

Light Labs is building the modern platform for lab testing, starting with consumer goods brands. We help companies test more cheaply, quickly, and enable them to use lab results to automate regulatory compliance and grow revenue.

We believe consumers deserve to know the purity and accuracy of every product that affects their families’ health. Improving our food system starts with increasing transparency and creating a more informed customer. Not only are we building a lab that makes testing faster, cheaper, and easier, but also the infrastructure that allows brands to:

1. Market and highlight their lab results by making it easy to push lab data directly to product display pages. Here, brands will highlight what’s in their product (active ingredients + they meet their claims) and what’s not in their product (heavy metals, environmental toxins, PFAs, etc)

2. Automatically comply with regulations like Prop 65, CA AB 899, Amazon testing requirements, etc.

By integrating the full experience – from testing to the data sharing with customers – we’re building a more efficient and streamlined process. Brands can now differentiate themselves and become the no-brainer choice in their category through testing and great transparency.

We’re a team of experienced founders that have raised $12M from top VCs (8VC and Valor), with top CPG founders and strategics also coming into the round. Whether you’re lab tech, engineer, sales, marketing, or customer support, you’ll have a seat at the table as we work to increase transparency in the food system.

Our Mission

Almost everything people consume is becoming increasingly toxic (and bereft of nutrition) which leads to massive health dysfunction while simultaneously destroying our planet. No one knows about it because you can’t see, taste, smell, or quantify the problem:

• Cinnamon Apple Puree pouches, marketed for children and labeled as preservative-free, kosher, and gluten-free, contained lead levels 200 times greater than the FDA’s proposed guidelines

• Over 1300 chemicals are banned in cosmetics in the EU, while only 11 are in the United States

• The US also allows thousands of food additives which are banned in other countries

• A study of 168 baby foods revealed that 95% contained at least one heavy metal (arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium), with a quarter containing all four

• Seven out eight samples of kale contained ‘disturbing’ levels of PFAs, with organic kale containing higher levels of the toxic compounds

Today, even if consumer brands or manufacturers wanted to test for purity of their products, the experience is slow, cumbersome, expensive, and nearly impossible to interpret or share the lab results unless you have a PhD in the area you’re testing for.

Because there is no feedback loop or standardized transparency that brands offer, there is no consumer pressure on change of practices and sourcing. If people knew what was in their food, they’d be shocked. They would shop differently.

Our mission is to bring this transparency to the food system. Allow customers to buy products and brands that are free of toxic ingredients. Transparency is the first step in creating demand for cleaner products, and ultimately a cleaner supply chain.

Founding Team

• Nick Mares: 3x founder, Kettle & Fire and Upside Financing. Kettle & Fire is a $100 million/year brand while Upside Financing exited in 2022. He’s raised more than $100M across the two companies and been both in the CEO and COO roles. Nick is a Thiel Fellow.

• Vijay Manohar: growth and GTM leader. He helped Samsara scale to be one of the fastest growing B2B software companies ever to reach $1B ARR, including an IPO (NYSE: IOT). B.S. in computer engineering from UT Austin.

Comp and Benefits

We’re also setting the new standard for compensation and equity in lab testing. Every employee gets skin in the game with equity, plus a competitive salary. Our goal is to have a small team of founder-minded professionals aligned with our mission to bring transparency to our food system. We offer excellent full-time employee benefits including health, dental, and vision insurance, paid holidays and vacation, and professional development opportunities.

Values We’re Looking For

• First Principles

• We’re looking for team members who can deal with ambiguity, deconstruct problems, and build the optimal solution.

• Question every requirement → Delete any part or process you can → Simplify and optimize → Accelerate cycle time → Automate.

• Standard of Excellence:

• High standards are contagious. A+ talent attracts A+ talent.

• There’s a glut of mediocrity in the world. We’re chasing after the products and people that strive for excellence.

• Bias for Action:

• Take initiative, make decisions quickly, and have a willingness to experiment and learn from failures

• Customer expectations are not static. They rise over time, which means we have to continuously improve every single day

• Low Ego:

• Coachability; it’s not about being right, it’s about getting to the right answer.

• Reacts calmly to criticism or negative feedback, and has a “feedback is an opportunity for information and improvement” mindset

• Respectfully challenges decisions when you disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable. Once a decision is made, even if you still disagree, commit wholly and move forward.

How to Apply:

Please submit your resume and a cover letter detailing your qualifications and experience to brenden@lightlabs.com.