Product Manager

Product Manager

AI-Native Platform | Planning Pod | Raleigh, NC | Full-time, in-office

About Planning Pod

Planning Pod is the operating system for the events industry. More than 1,200 event venues and planners run their bookings, clients, contracts, payments, and day-to-day operations on our platform. We have a proven product, a loyal customer base, and a profitable business.

We are now building something new: an AI-native version of Planning Pod, designed from the ground up around what large language models make possible. We believe the shift to AI is not an incremental upgrade. It is a chance to rebuild how event professionals work, and to set the standard for our category for the next decade.

We are backed by our own cash flow and by a longe term investment partner. That combination gives us something rare: the speed and ambition of a startup, paired with an existing customer base, deep domain knowledge, and the financial runway to build the right product without cutting corners.

The Role

We are hiring a Product Manager to partner directly with our CTO to define, build, and launch the new AI-native Planning Pod. We are standing up a new team entirely dedicated to this product, separate from the day-to-day work of our current platform, so the team can move fast and stay focused on getting the new product right.

This is a pivotal role on that team, with a high degree of influence and leadership over how the new platform takes shape. You will have end-to-end ownership and a front-row seat to one of the most interesting product opportunities in vertical SaaS.

You will own primary customer research and shape a clear, structured roadmap to bring the first version of this new product to market. To make it commercially viable, you will work across the organization: with engineering on what we build, with sales and marketing on positioning, pricing, and go-to-market, and with operations and support on how we deliver it day to day.

This role is based in our Raleigh, NC office, full-time, in-person. We are building this team together, in the same room, and that matters to us.

What You'll Own

Research and Discovery

•      Lead primary research with Planning Pod customers through interviews, workflow shadowing, and jobs-to-be-done analysis

•      Build a clear, evidence-based view of where AI creates the most value in event operations

•      Run structured competitive reviews across event tech and adjacent AI-native SaaS categories

•      Translate research into a sharp, prioritized product point of view

Roadmap and Requirements

•      Partner with the CTO to define the AI-native platform vision and roadmap

•      Translate customer and business goals into clear, sequenced product priorities

•      Write detailed product requirements and documentation that engineering, design, and the broader team can act on without ambiguity

•      Own and prioritize the backlog end-to-end

Commercial and Go-to-Market

•      Work closely with sales and marketing on product positioning, messaging, and pricing

•      Drive launch planning and rollout to existing customers in partnership with leadership

•      Communicate the product story clearly to customers, prospects, and internal teams

•      Gather signal from the field across sales calls, customer conversations, and win/loss reviews, and feed it back into the roadmap

Operations, Support, and Delivery

•      Partner with operations and support to make sure new features land well and are supportable day one

•      Validate features before release and defend the customer experience

•      Maintain clean product documentation, both internal and customer-facing, as the platform evolves

•      Close the loop with customer-facing teams so feedback turns into structured product decisions

What We're Looking For

•      5 years in product management, with significant SaaS experience

•      A track record of leading customer discovery and turning primary research into product direction

•      Strong written communicator who writes requirements, specs, and product docs that leave nothing ambiguous

•      Comfort working across commercial functions like sales, marketing, operations, and support, not just engineering

•      Demonstrated ability to ship from blank page to launched, commercially viable product

•      Comfort building structure and process from scratch in a fast-moving environment

•      Clear, direct communicator who can move fluidly between executives, engineers, and customers

•      Driven, high-energy, positive, and optimistic, and you bring momentum into every room

•      Based in Raleigh, NC (or willing to relocate) and excited to work in-person, full-time, with the team

Compensation & Growth

•      Competitive salary performance incentives

•      Opportunity to grow into a senior product leadership role as the team and platform scale