Hey there,
Looking to see if there was any product management folks recently laid off and looking to get back out there and hit the ground running?!
Location: US based only
Industry: B2B SaaS
Happy to help out folks in this area.
Drop a comment for a DM.
Decade in product across SaaS, fintech, and document processing. Last few years building AI-powered products. I also run a small recruiting practice on the side, so I’m reading job specs and talking to hiring managers across a lot of companies right now. Sharing what I’m seeing, because the discourse online is either “AI changes everything” or “nothing is different” and both are wrong.
What’s actually changing:
• Technical fluency expectations have moved up a level. Not just at AI companies. Even at traditional SaaS shops, PMs are now expected to know about eval design, latency/quality tradeoffs, and when AI is the wrong tool. “Curious about AI” used to be enough. Now it reads as a red flag.
• The PM-to-engineer ratio is widening. Teams are smaller, engineers are more leveraged with AI tooling, and PMs are expected to do more discovery, more writing. Fewer PMs per org, higher bar per PM
• Eval and measurement is becoming a core PM skill. If you ship anything probabilistic, you own the eval. Most PMs have never built one. The ones who have are getting traction.
• “Roadmap PM” roles are quietly disappearing. Companies want PMs who can prototype, write specs that engineers actually use, and operate without a project manager underneath them. Pure coordinators are starting to feel pressure.
What isn’t changing:
• The fundamentals. Customer discovery, problem framing, prioritization, written communication, working with design are still what separates good from great.
• The career ladder. More senior PMs still get there by owning ambiguous problems and shipping outcomes, not by knowing the latest model.
• The fact that most product decisions are still about humans, not technology.
Practical takeaways if you’re job hunting or leveling up:
1. If you’ve ever built or owned an eval pipeline (even a scrappy one), put it on your resume. It’s the most underrated line item right now.
2. Read job specs carefully. “AI PM” means three different jobs depending on the company: feature PM shipping AI capabilities, platform PM owning the model layer, or PM on an AI-native product. Comp and expectations differ wildly here.
3. The 20–300 person company range is the most interesting place to be right now for compensation and ownership, regardless of whether the company is “AI-first” or not.
4. Don’t chase the AI label. Chase the problem space and the team. The PMs doing the most interesting work right now are at companies you haven’t heard of.
Happy to answer questions in comments or DMs about interviewing, leveling, comp ranges I’m seeing, transition paths into AI work, anything product related.