About the role
Role Our first product-focused engineer Takes high-level direction (e.g., "analyze X") and drives to results Success looks like a LanceDB platform that is even more tightly focused on our ICP, and providing clarity on what engineering builds Day-to-day Shape roadmap with CTO + eng leadership Deep dives into competitors, users, and adjacent tech Talk to users constantly; turn insight into product changes Drive cross-team decisions on priorities (eng, field, support) Work with engineering directly as a technically-respected peer Qualifications 5–8+ years as a software engineer or in a highly technical product role Shipped and iterated on products end-to-end Experience working on large-scale data platforms (e.g., databases, data infra, ML/AI systems) Understanding of AI researcher persona - what success looks like for them, what are their pain points, what increases their happiness Regularly engaged with users (interviews, support, design partners, or community) Demonstrated ownership of ambiguous projects with minimal guidance Experience influencing or driving roadmap / prioritization decisions Strong written and verbal communication (can drive alignment across teams) Comfortable using data (metrics, experiments, usage) to guide decisions Experience contributing to or working with open source communities Why Help define and execute product at LanceDB Work directly with teams building real AI systems in production Sit at the center of infra + product—few roles like this exist High ownership, zero PM theater Early seat in shaping a category (AI-native data layer) Clear path to owning larger product scope over time