--- title: 'Principal Product Manager at SambaNova Systems' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/principal-product-manager-sambanova-systems-san-jose-a2epttfw13th' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-20' --- # Principal Product Manager at SambaNova Systems - **Company:** SambaNova Systems - **Location:** San Jose, CA - **Compensation:** $190k–$230k - **Posted:** 2026-10-15 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-20 - **Apply:** https://sambanova.ai/sambanova-available-positions/?gh_jid=6225005004 ## Job description SambaNova is a leader in next-generation AI infrastructure, delivering a full-stack inference platform for customers worldwide. At the core of SambaNova's technology is the RDU (Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit) — a chip built on a dataflow architecture rather than the traditional GPU model. Its decode performance is especially strong for agentic workloads like multi-turn agents, code generation, and long-running applications. RDUs are packaged into SambaRack, rack-scale hardware that lets customers deploy state-of-the-art models with better performance, greater energy efficiency, and faster time to value. We are looking for a technical product manager to own SambaNova's model and capability roadmap end to end. You will be the product owner and the subject-matter expert on models: you understand why a model matters (architecture, benchmarks, adoption, customer pull) and what it takes to ship it well (function calling, structured output, reasoning, long context, caching, speculative decoding and more). Most importantly, you turn that understanding into decisions, commitments and launches. This is a product role for someone deeply technical, not an engineering role with product tasks attached, but you will stay hands-on: testing new models yourself, finding where they shine and where they break, and building quick mock-ups that show the competitive edge fast inference unlocks. ## Responsibilities Own and drive the roadmap - Model Stack Rank: Own the unified, weighted stack rank of candidate models across customer demand, capability, market adoption, recency, strategic value and engineering effort. Tune the rubric, make and document overrides, and run the regular prioritization review - Per-Chip Roadmap: Own the plan of models × hardware generation × configuration × performance targets, and keep it grounded in measured platform data rather than estimates - Commitments and Launches: Turn priorities into dated commitments with engineering, track them to delivery and run model launches with Marketing, Docs and GTM - Roadmap Communication: Keep the model roadmap and dashboard current as the source of truth for execs, account teams and customers, and present it with confidence both internally and externally Define the capability bar - Feature-Completeness Framework: Own the definition of a “fully featured” model across speed, efficiency, model infrastructure, cloud and API features, for example tool calling, JSON schema and constrained decoding, reasoning controls, full context length, prompt caching, speculative decoding, streaming, logprobs and API compatibility (OpenAI Chat, Responses, Anthropic) - Gap Management: Find capability and conformance gaps from testing and telemetry, set their priority and drive them to closure with engineering - Quality Bar: Work with QA and Solutions to set acceptance criteria and the evals a model must pass before it launches Get hands-on with models - Model Testing and Evaluation: Get your hands on new models as soon as they land: run them through real prompts, agentic tasks and our feature checks to learn what works well, what does not, and where the gaps are - Finding the Edge: Spot the models, capabilities and use cases where SambaNova's speed and efficiency create a real competitive advantage, and back that view with evidence - Prototypes and Mock-ups: Build quick demos, prototypes and product mock-ups (e.g. a small app, notebook or UI) that make a model's value concrete for leadership, GTM and customers, and hand the strongest ideas to Solutions Engineering to productionize - Hands-on Findings to Roadmap: Feed what you learn into the stack rank, the feature bar and launch messaging, so roadmap decisions draw on first-hand experience as well as the data Be the model SME - Market and Model Intelligence: Track the open-weight model landscape (new releases, architectures such as MoE, MLA and GQA, benchmark and usage signals from sources like Artificial Analysis, OpenRouter and Hugging Face) and form a clear view on what matters and why - Customer Voice: Take in requests from customers, the field and the Model Feedback process, triage them, close the loop with requesters, and make sure demand is represented accurately in the rank - Competitive Positioning: Understand how our models, speed and features compare with GPU clouds and other inference providers, and turn that into roadmap and messaging - Process and Tooling: Keep improving the roadmap process and its data pipeline (Jira, internal platform APIs, public signals) so it stays trustworthy, auditable and as automated as possible ## Requirements Required Qualifications - Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science, Engineering, Machine Learning or a related technical field - 7+ years of combined experience in product management and technical roles (ML engineering, solutions engineering, research), including 3+ years as a PM on AI/ML, developer or infrastructure products - Strong working knowledge of LLMs: transformer and MoE architectures, inference trade-offs (latency, throughput, context, quantization), and features such as function calling, structured output and reasoning - A track record of owning a roadmap and shipping: setting priorities under constraints, saying no with data, and driving cross-functional teams to launch - Comfort with data: building and maintaining prioritization models, dashboards and scorecards, and hands-on enough to query an API or change a Python script - Hands-on with models: comfortable calling model APIs, running evals and quick experiments, and building simple prototypes or mock-ups (Python, notebooks or lightweight UI tools, including AI coding assistants) - Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to present a roadmap and defend trade-offs to executives, engineers and customers ## Preferred Qualifications - Product experience at an inference provider, model lab, AI cloud or AI hardware company - Hands-on familiarity with inference stacks (vLLM, SGLang, TensorRT-LLM) and OpenAI/Anthropic-compatible APIs - Experience designing evals and benchmark methodology for model quality and feature conformance - A background as an ML or solutions engineer before moving into product - Experience with enterprise, sovereign AI or public-sector customers - An active presence in the open-source model community What Success Looks Like - First 90 days: Take ownership of the stack rank, per-chip roadmap and feature framework; run the prioritization review; get hands-on with the current top-ranked models; and publish a roadmap that GTM and engineering both sign up to - 6 months: Measurable cut in time-to-model for priority models, clear visibility into capability gaps for every launched model, and every customer request tracked and answered - 12 months: The model roadmap is seen as SambaNova's strategic advantage: predictable launches, fully featured models, and a roadmap the field sells against Base Salary Range: Base Pay Range $190,000—$230,000 USD Submission Guidelines Please note that in order to be considered an applicant for any position at SambaNova Systems, you must submit an application form for each position for which you believe you are qualified. ## EEO Policy SambaNova Systems is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard basis of age (40 and over), color, disability, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, national origin/ancestry, race, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding), sexual orientation, and any other applicable status protected by federal, state, or local laws. Benefits Summary for US-Based, Full-Time Employment Positions SambaNova offers a competitive total rewards package, including the base salary, plus equity and benefits. We cover 95% premium coverage for employee medical insurance, and 77% premium coverage for dependents and offer a Health Savings Account (HSA) with employer contribution. We also offer Dental, Vision, Short/Long term Disability, Basic Life, Voluntary Life, and AD&D insurance plans in addition to Flexible Spending Account (FSA) options like Health Care, Limited Purpose, and Dependent Care. Our library of well-being benefits available to you and your dependents includes a full subscription to Headspace, Gympass+ membership with access to physical gyms, One Medical membership, counseling services with an Employee Assistance Program, and much more. ## About SambaNova Systems ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: SambaNova Systems provides a full-stack AI platform, from specialized Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit (RDU) chips to an agentic AI inference platform, designed for enterprises and governments. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series E) - **Headquarters**: San Jose, California, USA - **Founded**: 2017 - **Founders**: Rodrigo Liang (Co-founder & CEO), Kunle Olukotun (Co-founder & Chief Technologist) ## Core Business - **Primary Industry**: Artificial Intelligence / Enterprise AI Infrastructure - **Target Customers**: Developers, large enterprises, government agencies, and data centers (B2B) - **Mission Statement**: To be the most efficient and adaptable AI platform on the planet, empowering enterprises to control the trajectory of their data and AI future. ## Products & Services - **SambaNova Suite**: The company's core product, a fully integrated AI platform that includes hardware, software, and models. It provides OpenAI-compatible APIs for inference. - **SambaRack (SN40 & SN50)**: A state-of-the-art, rack-scale system optimized for AI inference. The SN50 is the fifth-generation system designed for fast agentic inference with high energy efficiency (average of 10 kWh for SN40). - **Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit (RDU)**: A custom-designed AI chip (SN40L, SN50) with a unique three-tier memory architecture that delivers high speed and throughput for large models while using less power than traditional GPUs. - **SambaOrchestrator**: A management tool for deploying, monitoring, and auto-scaling AI models across data centers. - **Sovereign AI Platform**: An offering for governments and enterprises to keep data secure and governed while enabling business teams to use AI. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (Private company). - **Key Metric**: Total funding of **$1.484B** (raised over multiple rounds, including a $350M Series E in early 2026). - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Intel, GV (Google Ventures), BlackRock, Redline Capital Management, Atlantic Bridge Capital. - **Growth Signals**: - Raised a $350M Series E in early 2026. - A launch partner for Meta's Llama 4 series. - First platform to support all three variants of Llama 3.1 (8B, 70B, and 405B). - Has filed 313 patents related to parallel computing, computer memory, and instruction processing. - Customers include Blackbox and Texas Advanced Computing Center. ## Competitive Advantages - **Full-Stack Integration**: Unlike many competitors, SambaNova controls the entire AI stack from the chip (RDU) to the software and models, allowing for deep optimization. - **Efficiency**: The RDU's dataflow architecture is designed for high performance with significantly lower power consumption (best tokens per watt), a key differentiator for scaling AI. - **Open-Source Focus**: The company is a strong supporter of open-source AI models, being a launch partner for major releases like Meta's Llama 4. ## Strategic Focus - **Agentic AI**: The company is heavily focused on enabling complex, multi-step agentic AI workflows, with the SN50 chip and SambaOrchestrator built for this purpose. - **Sovereign AI**: Targeting government and enterprise clients who need secure, on-premises or private cloud AI solutions. - **Scaling Inference**: Prioritizing high-speed, low-latency inference for the largest open-source models (e.g., DeepSeek, Llama) at scale. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Described as a "smart and motivated team" that values "talent first," "innovation that impacts," and "trust and integrity." The company emphasizes collaboration across departments and access to founders. - **Work Environment**: Offers flexible working hours and a hybrid/remote-friendly policy (Flexible PTO in the U.S.). - **Notable Perks**: - Flexible PTO - Parental Leave - Medical, Dental, and Vision benefits - 401k/Pensions - Gym Access - Mentorship and buddy programs - Internship programs - **Engineering Culture**: A deep-tech environment where you work on cutting-edge AI hardware (RDUs) and software, pushing the boundaries of AI performance. ## Sources 1. [SambaNova.ai](https://sambanova.ai/) 2. [SambaNova About Us](https://sambanova.ai/company/about) 3. [SambaNova Careers](https://sambanova.ai/company/careers) 4. [SambaNova Job Openings](https://sambanova.ai/company/careers/job-openings) 5. [CB Insights Profile](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/sambanova-systems) ## Other roles at SambaNova Systems - [Senior GTM Recruiter](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-gtm-recruiter-sambanova-systems-austin-3ez9534fyhr5) — Austin, TX / San Jose, CA - [Data Center Operations Technician](https://feeny.ai/job/data-center-operations-technician-sambanova-systems-santa-clara-wdqmaeqk1gc0) — Santa Clara, CA - [Senior Principal AI Solutions Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-principal-ai-solutions-engineer-sambanova-systems-san-jose-4eyqbvj6bs80) — San Jose, CA - [EMEA Field Marketing Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/emea-field-marketing-manager-sambanova-systems-london-wfgtfcr96pyz) — London, United Kingdom - [Partner Marketing Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/partner-marketing-manager-sambanova-systems-san-jose-ynxmtrk0sjrk) — San Jose, CA - [Web Project Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/web-project-manager-sambanova-systems-san-jose-yxc5zyebb7j6) — San Jose, CA - [Digital Content Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/digital-content-manager-sambanova-systems-san-jose-h2g9nwsv2028) — San Jose, CA - [Principal Product Marketing Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/principal-product-marketing-manager-sambanova-systems-san-jose-jv5tn0tpdmfe) — San Jose, CA - [Sales Director, Enterprise](https://feeny.ai/job/sales-director-enterprise-sambanova-systems-united-states-j5cac067qm2j) — United States - [Senior SambaCloud Experience & Ecosystem](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-sambacloud-experience-ecosystem-sambanova-systems-san-jose-awmqhkc19j60) — San Jose, CA