Most product manager job descriptions fail at the first line. They open with "We're a fast-moving team building the future of X" — which tells a senior PM candidate nothing — and then list 14 requirements, half of which are nice-to-haves the hiring manager doesn't actually care about.
This template is designed for a startup or scale-up hiring a product manager, typically their first or second PM. Use it as-is or adapt it. The annotated tips after each section explain the decisions.
Product Manager — [Company Name]
Location: [Remote / Hybrid — City / On-site — City] Type: Full-time Team: Product Reports to: CEO / CPO / Head of Product
About the role
We're hiring a Product Manager to own [specific product area — e.g., "our candidate matching features" / "the self-serve onboarding flow" / "the mobile experience"]. You'll be the connective tissue between customers, engineering, and design — translating real user problems into a prioritised backlog and shipping features people actually use.
This is not a coordination role. You'll set direction, not just manage a board. You'll talk to customers weekly, write specs that engineers trust, and push back when something isn't worth building.
[2–3 sentences on the product: what it does, who uses it, the stage it's at — e.g., "We're post-product-market-fit with 200 paying customers, growing 15% month-on-month. The core product works. Your job is to make it better."]
What you'll do
- Own a product area end-to-end: discovery, prioritisation, delivery, and post-launch iteration
- Run customer interviews and synthesise findings into clear problem statements
- Write concise, unambiguous product specs and acceptance criteria that engineers can work from
- Define and track product metrics — you own the success criteria for what you ship
- Work with design to go from problem → wireframe → tested prototype before engineering starts
- Prioritise ruthlessly — say no more than yes, and explain why clearly
- Present roadmap and progress to leadership and, occasionally, customers
What we're looking for
Required:
- 3+ years of product management experience at a software company (B2B SaaS preferred)
- Track record of shipping features used by real customers — not just features delivered to spec
- Strong written communication: specs, decision docs, and async updates that don't need a meeting to explain
- Comfort with data: you form hypotheses, run experiments, and make decisions from evidence
- Experience working directly with engineering — you understand how software is built without needing to build it yourself
- Customer obsession: you've spent time with users and can tell the difference between what they say they want and what they actually need
Nice to have:
- Technical background (engineering, data, or similar) — a major advantage in a small team
- Domain experience in [your sector: recruiting tech / fintech / B2B SaaS / dev tools]
- Experience at a company between 20–150 people — you know what "doing things that don't scale" looks like
- Familiarity with growth loops, self-serve onboarding, or product-led growth
- Data tooling experience (Mixpanel, Amplitude, Metabase, Looker, or similar)
What we offer
- Salary: [£65,000–£90,000 / $100,000–$135,000] depending on experience and location
- Equity: [X]% options vesting over 4 years with a 1-year cliff
- Remote policy: [Fully remote / 2 days in office per week — be specific]
- Health: [Your benefits package]
- Learning: £[X] / $[X] annual budget for conferences, books, and courses
- Holidays: [X] days + public holidays
Our hiring process
- Application review — we respond within 5 business days
- 30-minute intro call with the hiring manager
- Take-home exercise: a short product brief on a real problem we're facing (~2–3 hours)
- 90-minute interview: exercise review + product sense questions + team meet
- Reference calls (we ask for 2, aim to complete within 3 days)
- Offer
We tell you where you stand after every stage.
Notes on using this template
Define the product area before you post
The worst PM JDs say "you'll own the product." That's not a job description — it's a thought experiment. Define the area (onboarding, core product, platform, growth) before writing a word. Candidates self-select based on it, and the wrong area will attract the wrong people.
"3+ years" is not a filter — "track record" is
Senior engineers can verify experience with a pull request. Product experience is harder to verify. The honest filter is: have they shipped something people use? Replace hard year requirements with outcome-based criteria ("shipped features in production with measurable user adoption") and you'll get better signals in your application review.
Cut the executive-speak requirements
"Strategic thinker who thrives in ambiguity" is not a requirement — it's a filler phrase that experienced PMs find condescending and junior PMs don't understand. Replace every abstract requirement with a concrete, verifiable one.
| Cut this | Replace with |
|---|---|
| "Strategic thinker" | "Can write a 1-page product brief that engineers trust and design can work from" |
| "Thrives in ambiguity" | "Has shipped at a startup where requirements changed mid-sprint" |
| "Excellent communicator" | "Strong written communication — async-first team, most decisions are documented" |
| "Data-driven" | "Has run an A/B test, read the results, and made a product decision from them" |
Publish a salary range
PM candidates — especially senior ones — treat missing salary ranges as a signal that the company wastes their time. Ranges also improve application quality: candidates who apply knowing the range are more likely to accept. The discomfort of publishing the number is less costly than two weeks of interview process ending in a salary mismatch.
What a strong PM application looks like
Before screening: decide what you're actually looking for. Screening without criteria is just vibes. For each required qualification, write down what a strong signal looks like in an application. Share it with anyone who touches the process.
For PM roles specifically, the cover letter is more predictive than for engineering roles — a PM who can't write a compelling one-page argument for why they're the right fit is showing you something about how they'll write a product brief.
Once you start receiving applications, upload CVs to Rekvo and run an AI match against this job description. Within 2 minutes you'll have a ranked shortlist with a match score and gap analysis for each candidate — no manual CV reading required. See How to Use AI for Candidate Screening for the workflow.