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Founding Product Manager
TechTree's client
Salary
€60k – €110k
Work mode
On-site
What we're looking for
- Experience working with armed forces
- Ability to obtain French security clearance or willingness to travel to Ukraine
- Founder/entrepreneurial experience (nice to have)
About the role
ABOUT THE ROLE
This is a founding-team role. As Founding Product Manager, you'll be the bridge between customers, engineering, and the business — working directly with the founders to shape what gets built and why. In the early phase, the focus will be heavily on customer and competitive research, particularly around state-of-the-art voice LLM systems. Over time, the role transitions into roadmap ownership and close collaboration with the engineering team to execute.
You'll need to be comfortable starting from scratch, handling ambiguity, engaging in rapid prototyping, and doing things that don't scale yet. This is not a role for someone who needs a mature process to be effective.
WHAT YOU'LL WORK ON
Customer research and discovery
Spend time directly with customers — military and emergency services units — to understand their needs, workflows, and the gap between current product capabilities and ideal solutions. Build a deep understanding of the competitive landscape, particularly in voice AI.
Engineering communication and prioritisation
Translate customer requirements into clear, prioritised inputs for the engineering team. Own the process of closing the gap between what the product does today and what customers need it to do.
Roadmap ownership
Work closely with the founders to align product development with overall business strategy. Manage the roadmap for the first products from the ground up.
Rapid prototyping and iteration
Be prepared to move fast, test assumptions quickly, and do things that don't scale in order to generate the signal needed to make better decisions.
WHAT WE LOOK FOR
Experience working with armed forces
Prior experience working within or alongside military or police organisations is essential. You understand how these customers think, communicate, and make decisions.
Security clearance eligibility
Ability to obtain French security clearance, or willingness to travel to Ukraine for customer engagements.
Comfort with ambiguity and zero-to-one work
You're energised by early-stage environments where the brief is incomplete and the path isn't defined. You build structure rather than wait for it.
Strong communication and stakeholder management
Able to operate fluently between technical engineering teams and non-technical operational customers, keeping both aligned without losing either.
Bonus
Founder or entrepreneurial experience. Familiarity with voice AI or LLM systems. Background in defence, intelligence, or emergency services.
THE TEAM
Small and deliberately assembled. The founding team brings together engineers with deep experience at a leading technology company, a former special forces commander with operational field experience, defence-sector PhDs, and ex-founders. It's a team built for this specific problem — technically rigorous, operationally credible, and moving fast.
COMPENSATION & BENEFITS
Salary
€60,000 – €110,000 depending on experience.
Equity
Meaningful equity as a founding team member.
Relocation
Sponsorship available for candidates relocating.
This is a founding-team role. As Founding Product Manager, you'll be the bridge between customers, engineering, and the business — working directly with the founders to shape what gets built and why. In the early phase, the focus will be heavily on customer and competitive research, particularly around state-of-the-art voice LLM systems. Over time, the role transitions into roadmap ownership and close collaboration with the engineering team to execute.
You'll need to be comfortable starting from scratch, handling ambiguity, engaging in rapid prototyping, and doing things that don't scale yet. This is not a role for someone who needs a mature process to be effective.
WHAT YOU'LL WORK ON
Customer research and discovery
Spend time directly with customers — military and emergency services units — to understand their needs, workflows, and the gap between current product capabilities and ideal solutions. Build a deep understanding of the competitive landscape, particularly in voice AI.
Engineering communication and prioritisation
Translate customer requirements into clear, prioritised inputs for the engineering team. Own the process of closing the gap between what the product does today and what customers need it to do.
Roadmap ownership
Work closely with the founders to align product development with overall business strategy. Manage the roadmap for the first products from the ground up.
Rapid prototyping and iteration
Be prepared to move fast, test assumptions quickly, and do things that don't scale in order to generate the signal needed to make better decisions.
WHAT WE LOOK FOR
Experience working with armed forces
Prior experience working within or alongside military or police organisations is essential. You understand how these customers think, communicate, and make decisions.
Security clearance eligibility
Ability to obtain French security clearance, or willingness to travel to Ukraine for customer engagements.
Comfort with ambiguity and zero-to-one work
You're energised by early-stage environments where the brief is incomplete and the path isn't defined. You build structure rather than wait for it.
Strong communication and stakeholder management
Able to operate fluently between technical engineering teams and non-technical operational customers, keeping both aligned without losing either.
Bonus
Founder or entrepreneurial experience. Familiarity with voice AI or LLM systems. Background in defence, intelligence, or emergency services.
THE TEAM
Small and deliberately assembled. The founding team brings together engineers with deep experience at a leading technology company, a former special forces commander with operational field experience, defence-sector PhDs, and ex-founders. It's a team built for this specific problem — technically rigorous, operationally credible, and moving fast.
COMPENSATION & BENEFITS
Salary
€60,000 – €110,000 depending on experience.
Equity
Meaningful equity as a founding team member.
Relocation
Sponsorship available for candidates relocating.
Equity details
Type: equity
Details: Compensation includes equity, but specific details are not provided.
About TechTree's client
This company is a European defence startup, based between Paris and Warsaw. Our mission is to create modern software tailored for hostile environments. Our customers include European military and police units. We are in stealth but have already been recognised as one of France’s top 20 seed companies. Backed by Project A, Europe’s leading defence VC, and angels including the founders of Cloudflare, Quantum Systems, and ElevenLabs. We’re assembling a world-class team at the intersection of modern software and defence. We do not work on weapons systems or hardware products.
Team
- two early Cloudflare employees
- a former GIGN commander (French special forces)
- ex-Googlers
- Thales PhDs
- ex-founders