Forward Deployed AI Product Manager

We are hiring a Forward Deployed AI Product Manager (FDPM) to be the connective tissue between our clients and our engineering teams. This is not a traditional PM role. You will live at the intersection of product strategy, technical delivery, and client partnership—spending meaningful time embedded with global retailers, e-commerce brands, hotel chains, and restaurant operators to deeply understand their workflows, then translating those insights into AI-powered solutions that ship. Think of this as: part Product Manager, part Implementation Consultant, part Pre/Post-Sales Engineer. Whether you have run operations inside a retailer, hotel group, or restaurant brand, implemented enterprise software at an e-commerce, POS, PMS, or loyalty vendor, or advised retail and hospitality clients as a consultant—if you have felt the pull toward product and AI, this role was built for you.

What You'll Do: Client Engagement & Discovery

Trusted Advisory: Serve as the primary Product point of contact for a portfolio of retail, e-commerce, and hospitality clients, owning relationships across contact center operations, guest experience, digital commerce, IT, and store operations stakeholders, often working alongside C-suite sponsors.

Workflow Observation: Lead structured discovery engagements—interviews, order journey mapping, queue observation, side-by-sides with agents, and document analysis—to surface automation opportunities and unmet guest, shopper, or operational needs.

The "Art of the Possible": Connect client operational pain points to Talkdesk AI platform capabilities—while respecting brand voice, consumer privacy, and PCI constraints.

Solution Design & Scoping

Scope Alignment: Review pre-sales Statements of Work drafted by the Solution Architect to confirm scope, feasibility, and design alignment before signature.

Workflow Translation: Translate real-world workflows—WISMO (Where Is My Order?), returns, exchanges, loyalty/rewards inquiries, reservation bookings, cancellations, check-in flows, and VIP guest routing—into structured product and configuration requirements with FDEs, Applied ML, and Solution Engineers.

Specification Ownership: Own the quality and completeness of Autopilot design and specification documents for engineering handoffs, including required brand disclosures, payment verification steps, TCPA consent capture, and agent escalation criteria.

Success Metrics Definition: Define business KPIs with clients (time-to-value, containment/call deflection, self-service completion rate, first-contact resolution, CSAT/NPS, average handle time, order modification cycle time, cost per contact).

Scope Discipline: Enforce scope discipline during UAT—route out-of-scope requests to the Sales/Account team to follow formal change order processes.

Pilots, Deployment & Value Delivery

0→1 Executions: Own deployments end-to-end (from pilot kickoff through go-live): manage timelines, stakeholder communication, change management, and the iteration cycle to production-ready deployments.

Validation & Testing: Generate test criteria from build artifacts and conduct manual validation (e.g., live call testing, messaging flow validation, authentication paths) before approving client UAT.

Compliance & Security: Partner with client legal, privacy, and security teams to clear control requirements (PCI DSS, TCPA, GDPR/CCPA) gating go-live.

On-Site Go-Live: Drive client UAT to completion efficiently, including on-site travel for strategic accounts to accelerate testing and fine-tuning.

Post-Launch Observability: Monitor deployed Autopilots post-launch using observability tooling, evaluating performance and resolving field issues.

Value Handoff: Ensure clients and Customer Experience Managers (CXMs) can successfully measure business success metrics before handing off ongoing account management.

ROI Narratives: Document ROI proof points and case-for-scale narratives at go-live to empower CXMs to drive expansion and renewal.

Product Feedback & Roadmap Influence

Field Insights: Surface reusable patterns and high-priority gaps from retail/hospitality field deployments to the core product roadmap, partnering with engineering and product leadership.

Scale the Practice: Contribute to internal knowledge bases, playbooks, and templates that systematize the FDPM practice as Talkdesk scales.

Required Qualifications

Industry Context: 5+ years of experience in retail, e-commerce, or hospitality, with hands-on exposure to customer-facing or back-office operations in one or more domains: Retail & E-Commerce Servicing (orders, returns, exchanges, promotions, loyalty), Hospitality Operations (reservations, guest relations, front desk, concierge), or Restaurant Operations (ordering, delivery support, table management).

Client Delivery Ownership: Demonstrated experience in a client-facing delivery role—implementation, technical project management, solution consulting, or customer success—where you owned outcomes, not just activities.

Workflow Mapping: Ability to quickly understand and map complex guest and shopper journeys, then distill them into structured requirements and prioritized problem statements.

Executive Communication: Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to present to VP/C-suite stakeholders and translate between store/guest operations and technical teams.

Regulatory & Data Familiarity: Working familiarity with TCPA outbound contact rules, PCI DSS payment handling, consumer data privacy regulations (CCPA, GDPR), and brand compliance guidelines.

Comfort with Ambiguity: Comfortable operating in whitespace; you default to action and bring structure to uncertainty.

AI & Agentic Curiosity: Experience with agentic workflows and a strong curiosity about AI and automation; eager to develop deep product fluency in conversational AI for guest and retail experiences.

Travel: Willingness to travel up to 25–35% to client sites for discovery, UAT, go-live support, and executive meetings.

Preferred Qualifications

Vendor Experience: Experience at a retail, e-commerce, OMS, POS, PMS, or loyalty technology vendor in a Project Manager, Implementation Consultant, Technical Services, or similar role.

High-Growth Expertise: Prior experience in a startup or high-growth technology company in a PM, solutions engineering, or FDE-adjacent capacity.

Contact Center Ecosystems: Familiarity with CCaaS, IVR, or conversational AI, with prior exposure to platforms such as Talkdesk, Genesys, Five9, or similar.

Integrations & Standards: Understanding of APIs and integrations with retail/hospitality platforms—Shopify, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Magento, SAP, Oracle Commerce, Workday, Opera PMS, Sabre, Amadeus, or major loyalty and POS systems.

Agile Product Delivery: Experience building or contributing to product roadmaps, writing PRDs, or working in Agile/scrum delivery processes.

Pay Range (Base Pay) : $200,000 - $240,000

Other Types of Pay : Based on level and role the employee may be eligible for long term incentives in the form of equity and short term incentives of either bonus or commission.

Health Insurance : Medical, Dental, Vision, Life and Disability Insurance, Employee Assistance Program (EAP).

Retirement Benefits : 401(k) plan

Paid Time Off : Talkdesk offers an uncapped paid time off program for exempt employees and an accrual-based program for non-exempt employees; both are subject to manager approval and consistent with business needs.

Paid Holidays : Talkdesk offers 14 paid holidays each year.

Paid Sick Leave : Exempt employees have uncapped paid time off and non-exempt sick leave follows accrual standards; both are subject to manager approval and consistent with business needs.

Method of Application : Apply online.

Application Window : The application window is expected to close at least 60 days from the posting date. The application was poste