confluent - Staff Product Manager, Cloud Networking

• Own the platform strategy for Confluent Cloud Networking across AWS, Azure, and GCP — defining the north star, multi-year roadmap, and sequencing of bets that balance customer connectivity needs, cost efficiency, security posture, and engineering leverage • Define frameworks and standards that other PMs, designers, and engineers use to evaluate networking decisions — connection model selection criteria, cost attribution models, security control frameworks, and launch readiness standards • Drive architectural decisions in partnership with engineering leadership — weighing trade-offs between user experience, cost, and operational complexity • Expand scope and create optionality — identify adjacencies the team should move into (network observability, cost transparency tooling, next-generation isolation models) and build the business case for them • Develop the product team — mentor Senior PMs on the team, provide feedback on product documents and roadmap thinking, and raise the bar on how the team approaches customer research and decision-making • Build senior stakeholder alignment across product, engineering, sales, field, legal, and security, then present the platform vision to executive leadership to secure organizational investment — develop the business case, communicate trade-offs clearly, and earn commitment for multi-year platform bets • Define and own success metrics at the platform level — connecting technical milestones to business outcomes including revenue, retention, attach rates, and infrastructure cost efficiency • Engage directly with strategic customers and prospects — represent the product roadmap with credibility in technical conversations with enterprise CTOs, architects, and network engineers • 8+ years of product management experience, with at least 3 years owning a cloud infrastructure, platform, or networking product • Demonstrated track record of setting product strategy and roadmap at platform or portfolio scope — not just feature-level delivery • Deep fluency in cloud networking concepts: PrivateLink, VNet peering, Transit Gateway, Private Service Connect, DNS, security groups, CIDR/IP management, and their trade-offs across AWS, Azure, and GCP • Experience owning products that serve enterprise customers with complex compliance, security, and connectivity requirements • Proven ability to partner with engineering leadership as a co-decision-maker on architectural direction — not just translating engineering output • Strong analytical foundation: can model unit economics, build business cases with cost/risk sensitivity, and measure platform health through leading and lagging indicators • Practices AI-native product management — uses AI tools as a genuine thought partner throughout the product lifecycle (research, prioritization, spec writing, analytics), with sound judgment on when to use, override, and validate AI output; and brings that same mindset to product design, building features and APIs that are composable, observable, and easy for AI agents and automation to consume • Experience developing PMs and raising the bar on product thinking — through direct mentorship, feedback, or team processes • Experience with Envoy, Service Mesh, DNS and Kubernetes Networking • Familiarity with Terraform, API-first and infrastructure-as-code workflows, and how enterprise engineering teams operate networking automation • Exposure to network traffic metering, data transfer billing attribution, cost transparency tooling, or pricing and packaging strategy for cloud infrastructure products — defining packaging tiers, price points, and commercial model for enterprise buyers • Experience operating in a product-led growth or usage-based pricing environment • An MBA degree is a plus • WHAT GIVES YOU AN EDGE: