Director of Product

Your mission

We’ve achieved what most startups only dream of: true Product–Market Fit. With €10m+ ARR, 1,400+ customers, and a 120% Net Revenue Retention, deskbird is winning in the workplace management space. But our product organisation has scaled with the founder’s hands on every steering wheel, and that model has hit its ceiling.

We’re looking for a Director of Product who will become the operational backbone of our product management team. You won’t be a strategy-only leader who hovers above the work. You will temporarily own a squad yourself (our Mobile team), manage and develop our PM team, and become the central sparring partner for product decisions across the organisation.

Your mandate is to build a product management function that operates at scale, without losing the product quality and customer obsession that got us here.

This is a rare role. You need to be humble enough to earn trust by going deep into our product, and ambitious enough to build a world-class PM function from that foundation.

In this role you will

• Temporarily own Mobile as your squad - Our native iOS and Android apps serve as the primary touchpoint for tens of thousands of end-users daily. The PM work here is roughly 50–60% cross-squad coordination (enabling other teams’ features on mobile) and 40–50% mobile-specific strategy. You will own this squad initially, then hire a dedicated PM to take it over as the product organisation scales.
• Manage and develop the PM team - You will be the direct manager of 4 Product Managers (including a new Senior PM hire for our core squad). You own their 1:1s, career development, performance, and hiring. Your goal is to elevate an already talented PM team into a high-performing unit that operates with increasing independence.
• Become the go-to sparring partner - Product sparring is central to how we work. You will co-own strategic product decisions from the start, progressively deepening your involvement as you build domain expertise. Over time, you should become the primary sparring partner for all PMs.
• Drive PM excellence - Audit and improve our product management processes: how we prioritize, how we run discovery, how we write specs, how we measure outcomes. Move us from founder-driven intuition to a repeatable, scalable PM operating model.
• Champion AI-native product development - AI is transforming how products are built and how product managers work. You will be the driving force behind adopting AI tools and methods across the PM team, from AI-assisted discovery and prototyping to reshaping our workflows. You don’t just talk about AI; you ship with it.
• Own hiring for PM - Starting with a Senior PM for our core squad and eventually a dedicated Mobile PM, you will build and execute the hiring roadmap for the product management function.

What you need to be successful

You’ve been a strong IC Product Manager yourself. You can still sit down and write a sharp PRD, challenge an engineer on technical trade-offs, or dissect a customer interview. You lead by depth, not by title.

• 7+ years of experience in B2B SaaS product management, with at least 3 years in a mid-market or enterprise environment.
• 2+ years of direct people management of Product Managers (not just tech leads or designers). You’ve hired PMs, developed them, and had the hard conversations.
• You’ve lived through the €5m–€30m ARR scaling phase and know what breaks in product organisations at this stage.
• Strong technical acumen. You don’t need to write code, but you need to understand architecture, APIs, and platform trade-offs well enough to spar with engineers on eye-level.
• You are AI-native in your own work. You can demonstrate, with real examples, how you use AI tools in discovery, analysis, prototyping, or spec writing today.
• You thrive in environments where product leadership is deeply embedded in the company culture. You know how to build on existing strengths while bringing your own perspective.
• Experience with mobile product development (iOS/Android) is a strong plus, given your squad ownership.
• Fluent in English. German is a strong plus but not required.
• Based in Berlin or Munich.

We want to be upfront about what this role looks like:

• This is not a VP-level strategy role where you set direction from above. You will get your hands dirty. You will own a squad.
• This is not a role where you own the full roadmap on day one. Our product has deep domain complexity, and strategic ownership is something you will build progressively as you immerse yourself in the product and the team.

What’s in it for you?

• Unlimited Annual Leave - take the time you need to recharge. 
• Annual company summit: Meet the whole team at our yearly summit in inspiring locations across Europe (check out the video from our last summit).
• Team “Bursts”: Unlimited opportunities to collaborate with your team in person.
• Home office support: Financial contribution to set up a comfortable, productive home office.
• Learning & development: Annual budget for coaching, certifications, and conferences.
• Joy budget: Annual budget to spend on activities that spark joy, connection, and shared energy.