AI Product Lead

Granicus

Granicus serves more than 7,000 public-sector agencies and powers approximately 30 billion digital interactions annually. Within the Office of the CTO, we operate an AI-native software development lifecycle: a production engineering model in which autonomous agents perform high-confidence implementation work and senior engineers orchestrate, review, and own the outcome. The model is established and operating; we are scaling it across additional delivery teams.

This role joins one of those teams. Our engineering standards are calibrated to the practices used by leading software and AI organizations — generator-verifier architecture, eval-driven development, staged deployment, and high-volume autonomous pull-request pipelines — operated within a FedRAMP-authorized environment. We are hiring practitioners who will set and uphold these standards, not engineers who simply use AI tooling.

Operating constraints (non-negotiable): agents execute only within branches; all agent-generated code passes senior human review before merging to production; autonomous execution is a force multiplier and does not transfer accountability away from the responsible engineer. Compliance obligations — NIST 800-53 Rev 5, WCAG, SOC 2, and applicable FedRAMP authorizations — are treated as engineering requirements and a source of competitive advantage.

Conventional delivery distributes product management, design, and engineering leadership across separate individuals, introducing coordination overhead at each handoff. In an AI-native lifecycle, where implementation throughput is high, those handoffs become the primary constraint. This role consolidates the product, design, and delivery-leadership disciplines into a single accountable owner who synthesizes them rather than displacing the specialists who practice them. The role translates product intent into shipped, compliant software by directing the agent array and implementing front-end experiences directly. It combines the responsibilities of a staff product engineer, a design engineer, and an engineering manager, and requires demonstrated capability across all three.

What Your Impact Will Look Like

• Own the product outcome of the team end to end — from problem definition through accepted, in-production software. You hold the roadmap commitment and the quality bar.
• Direct the agent array across three execution modes — Interactive (real-time pairing with an agent), Supervised (agents propose changes; you review and gate each pull request), and Fully Autonomous (agents execute a scoped workstream end to end; you review the output). You determine the appropriate mode for each workstream based on risk and measured agent reliability.
• Implement production front-end code from the same repository as the engineering team, under engineering review. You deliver the user experience directly rather than specifying it for others to build.
• Apply product and design rigor at every stage — discovery, user research, information architecture, interaction design, and prioritization — and ensure that increased build velocity does not compromise upstream rigor.
• Author the prompts, evaluation criteria, and acceptance criteria that convert product intent into work an agent can execute and a verifier can validate.
• Enforce the human review gate and accessibility standards in partnership with the lead engineer, ensuring no agent-generated code reaches production without senior human review and that WCAG conformance and compliance requirements are designed in from the outset.
• Set and maintain the team's delivery cadence and contribute improvements to the shared operating model that other delivery teams adopt.
• Ownership from day one:
• Product outcome and roadmap commitment for one delivery team
• Deliberate use of the three execution modes per workstream
• Direct authorship of the team's production front-end code
• Acceptance criteria and evaluation suites for all team deliverables
• Scope you will grow into:
• Refinement of the cross-team product-and-design operating model
• Higher autonomy ratios supported by measured agent reliability
• A design system and component library that agents build against by default
• Mentorship of additional product-and-design engineering leads as the model scales

You Will Love This Job If You Have

• End-to-end product delivery as a builder. You have owned a product surface end to end — making product decisions, designing the experience, and personally writing front-end code deployed to production users.
• Production front-end engineering. Proficiency in modern JavaScript/TypeScript and React (or an equivalent framework), strong CSS, and the ability to move fluently between design files and application code.
• Design discipline. Demonstrated competence in information architecture, interaction design, and accessibility (WCAG), with the judgment to evaluate experience quality, not only functional completeness.
• Direction of AI coding agents. Practical experience using coding agents on production work, including a working understanding of their failure modes and the controls required to use them as leverage without compromising quality or review.
• A track record of defining how teams work. You have established a process, pattern, or standard that other practitioners adopted.
• High autonomy under ambiguity. You produce structure and direction where none is provided.
• High-assurance or regulated delivery experience. Shipping within FedRAMP, FedRAMP High, defense, financial services, healthcare, or another NIST 800-53 / SOC 2 / HIPAA-bound environment, treating those constraints as design inputs.
• Public-sector or govtech product experience, including an understanding of constituent- and caseworker-facing use cases.
• Design-systems ownership. Experience building or maintaining a component library used across multiple teams.
• Experience operating within an eval-driven or test-first engineering culture at a leading software organization.

Indicators of a strong fit:

• You are effective owning quality for software an agent implemented, and you treat that accountability as central to the role.
• You can both define the product and implement its interface, and you prefer to do both rather than specialize in one.
• You hold product positions firmly and revise them quickly in response to evidence.
• You regard regulatory constraints as design parameters to engineer within, not obstacles to delivery.
• You want to shape the operating model rather than inherit a fixed process.

Indicators this role is not a fit:

• You require a single, well-bounded discipline — product, or design, or engineering exclusively. This role spans all three.
• You consider code review outside your responsibility. The review gate is a core part of this role.
• You are uncomfortable being accountable for output you did not personally author. Autonomy in this model increases ownership, not the reverse.
• You require fully specified requirements before beginning work. Resolving ambiguity is a central responsibility.
• You view compliance as overhead to minimize rather than rigor to engineer.

Pay Range

USD $144,000.00 - USD $184,000.00 /Yr.

About Us

Don't have all the skills/experience mentioned above? At Granicus, we are trying to build diverse, inclusive teams. We do not have degree requirements for most of our roles. If you don't meet every requirement above but are excited to learn more, we encourage you to apply. We might just be able to find another role that could be a perfect fit!

Security and Privacy Requirements:

• Responsible for Granicus information security by appropriately preserving the Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (CIA) of Granicus information assets in accordance with the company's information security program.
• Responsible for ensuring the data privacy of our employees and customers, their data, as well as taking all required privacy training in a timely manner, in accordance with company policies.

The Benefits

At Granicus, we offer a comprehensive and flexible benefits package designed to support your well-being, growth, and work-life balance—starting from day one. Here's what you can expect as a U.S.-based team member:

Flexibility & Balance:

• Flexible Time Off – Take the time you need to rest, recharge, and live your life.
• Company-Wide Wellbeing Days – Paid days off to unplug and focus on your mental health.
• Work From Home Reimbursement – Support a productive home office environment.

Health & Wellness:

• Multiple Health Plan Options – Including a 100% employer-paid plan.
• Employer HSA Contributions – When enrolled in a High-Deductible Health Plan.
• Fitness Reimbursement Program – Stay active, your way