Director of Product Management

Job Description

Job Description

About Tempo

Tempo Communications builds the test, measurement, and tooling products that technicians rely on to install and maintain communications networks across copper, fiber, PoE, and underground utility location. Our brands are Tempo, Paladin Tools, and KingFisher.

We are an independent, closely held, owner-led company of roughly 130 people, headquartered in Vista, California, with operations in Wales, Hungary, and Australia. Our customer is the field technician, and our promise is straightforward: Find it. Fix it. Prove it.

The Role

We are hiring a Director of Product Management to own how Tempo decides what to build, in what order, and why. This is a working leadership role rather than a purely strategic one: you will carry a product category of your own while leading three product line managers across the rest of the portfolio, reporting directly to the CEO.

This is a step up, and we mean it that way. We expect to hire a senior product manager or product line leader who has outgrown their current scope and is ready to run a portfolio, rather than someone who has held a director title for a decade. If the seat above you does not exist where you are, this is that seat.

This is hands-on work at a company small enough that your decisions ship. If you are looking for a comfortable landing, this is not it. If you want a portfolio of your own, real financial discipline behind the choices, and products you defined in technicians' hands inside of eighteen months, read on.

What You'll Own

Application knowledge. Everything else in this role depends on it. Innovative products come from understanding how the work actually gets done and then recognizing where safety, productivity, or quality can be improved. You will need to understand the workflow of a locate, a splice, a certification, and a pull. That knowledge either arrives with you from the field or you build it deliberately through voice-of-customer work and ride-alongs with end users, and you will hold your team to the same standard.

The portfolio. Location & Markers, Fiber Test & Measurement, Copper & PoE, and Tools. You will build and defend a multi-year roadmap with genuine continuity of technology behind it rather than a list of individually funded projects, and you will carry one category yourself, P&L included.

The funnel, with financial rigor. You will build the business cases, rank the funnel on financial merit, and answer for that ranking. Projects will be funded and killed on your analysis, and we expect you to tell us when something should stop.

Stage gate discipline. You will own our NP&SI stage-gate process end to end: deliverables defined for each gate, evidence presented at the gate, and a vote that can genuinely fail.

Market sizing and competitive intelligence. The quantitative half of understanding your market. You will size an opportunity before recommending that we invest in it, and you will defend the assumptions when someone pushes back on them.

Launch outcomes. Today we track launch dates, but not what the launches actually earned. You will own revenue, margin, and vitality index measured against plan and reported on a cadence. Application notes, training materials, and sales tools are product deliverables as well, and you own that they exist and that a representative can sell from them, even when someone else delivers the training.

The team. Three product line managers. You will set development plans, run structured reviews, coach on business case construction and market analysis, and build a deeper bench than the one you inherit.

What You'll Bring

Required

• Eight or more years in product management or product line management for physical products, such as instruments, test and measurement equipment, electrical or electronic hardware, or professional tools.
• Application depth in how field work actually gets done, whether you earned it in the field or built it deliberately through ride-alongs and observed use. Be prepared to describe a product decision you changed because of something you saw.
• Ownership of a product line P&L, including pricing, margin, and portfolio rationalization.
• Proven ability to build and defend business cases, and to rank a development funnel on financial merit. Come prepared to walk us through a funnel you prioritized and the analysis behind it.
• Substantive experience inside a formal stage-gate or phase-gate process, where you owned the gates for your product line and built the evidence behind them.
• Market sizing and segmentation work that you had to defend to people with the authority to say no.
• Fluency reading a business from its data, including SKU-level margin and mix, price realization, and launch performance measured against plan.
• The ability to specify a product both to engineering and to an overseas contract manufacturer, covering requirements, trade-offs, and first article review, with enough technical depth to be taken seriously in either conversation.
• Experience managing or mentoring product managers, and a willingness to travel roughly 25 to 30 percent.

Preferred

• Background in communications infrastructure, utility locating, fiber optics, or electrical contracting markets.
• Time in the field as a technician, installer, or field engineer before moving into product management.
• Structured preference and trade-off research such as conjoint, MaxDiff, Kano, or price sensitivity analysis, along with the judgment to recognize when a formal study earns its cost and when a dozen good field interviews will do.
• Comfort with AI-assisted research and analysis tools, which our product and sales teams already use daily.
• Two-step distribution experience, or product line integration following an acquisition.

How We'll Evaluate You

Expect us to ask about four things. The first is a development funnel you prioritized, including the criteria, the financial model, a project you backed that paid off, and one you killed. The second is a business case you built and what actually happened after the launch. The third is something you observed a technician do that changed a product. The fourth is the most significant thing you took on that was not in your job description.

We would rather see one portfolio you genuinely owned than a résumé of programs you coordinated.

Why This Role Is Worth Your Time

• Real authority. You report to the CEO, with no layer between your analysis and the decision.
• A portfolio that needs a point of view. Strong brands and a loyal installed base, genuine opportunity in fiber and utility location, and strategy work that nobody has claimed.
• Room to grow. The role is scoped to become VP of Product Management for a larger portfolio, on performance, against criteria we will put in writing.
• Systems you will recognize. We run annual goal deployment with action plans, named owners, and bowling charts, alongside a formal stage-gate process. The scaffolding already exists and needs a product leader who will use it properly.
• Big-company rigor at small-company speed. Three owners, no private equity committee, and no quarterly earnings theater. Good proposals get an answer in days.

Location and Compensation

The role is based at our Vista, California headquarters, and we would prefer someone in the building, since a great many product decisions here get made in hallways or standing over a prototype with engineering. For the right person we will consider a remote arrangement, with meaningful on-site time beyond the travel described above.

Base salary range: $180,000 to $220,000, plus an annual performance bonus. Where you land within the range depends on experience and qualifications. We have a long record of paying for performance, and the bonus is a substantial component of total compensation rather than a token. The package also includes medical, dental, and vision coverage, a 401(k), and paid time off.

To Apply

Send a résumé along with a short note describing one portfolio decision you made that you would still defend today, and one you would make differently.

Tempo Communications, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, ancestry, age (40 and over), disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, reproductive health decision-making, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Reasonable accommodations are available for qualified individuals with disabilities and for religious practices. Individuals with disabilities and protected veterans are encouraged to apply.