Our partner operates an Energy Management System (EMS) platform sitting at the intersection of physical/technical infrastructure (PLCs, inverters, telemetry) and complex energy-market realities (DSO/TSO requirements, balancing, curtailment, billing). As their engineering team scales rapidly from 3 to 10+ professionals, they need a single, highly competent hybrid PM/BA-adjacent professional to translate between the energy domain and engineering, drive delivery frameworks, and own the product backlog lifecycle — working in close, continuous partnership with the Founder.
Main Responsibilities
Continuous Product Discovery & Validation (30%)
- Partner continuously with the Founder to capture early-stage feature hypotheses, market signals, and commercial targets
- Lead rapid prototyping initiatives, putting feature concepts in front of diverse users and stakeholders
- Run ongoing feedback loops to ensure feature concepts hit real customer pain points and accelerate sales velocity
- Translate discovery insights directly into roadmap priorities and macro-level requirements
High-Level Backlog Ownership & PM ↔ BA Tandem (30%)
- Own and prioritize the high-level product backlog, decomposing validated milestones into structured epics
- Act as the direct operational counterpart to the Business Analyst — setting targets for spec engineering and reviewing specs for commercial alignment
- Manage operational modes: loose, fluid boundaries for Rapid Validation Mode vs. strict boundary locks for Stabilization Mode
Project Management & Delivery Execution (40%)
- Drive execution rhythm across all engineering streams (Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Backend, Frontend, SRE) for a predictable release cadence
- Monitor development velocity against AI agentic pipeline capacity (e.g., CrewAI, LangGraph) used for boilerplate generation, UI prototyping, and test automation; justify team expansion only when automation limits are reached
- Serve as final commercial gatekeeper, verifying that features built via human-agent collaboration satisfy original business logic and user needs before release
Mandatory Requirements
Must-have
- 6+ years as a Technical Project/Product Manager in the energy domain or another complex, regulated domain (logistics, telecom routing, industrial automation)
- Proven track record running continuous discovery pipelines and converting B2B user feedback into strategic backlog decisions
- Spec-driven, AI-aware mindset — comfortable with contract-first development and clear high-level boundaries for both BAs and autonomous agents
- Technical fluency — can read API docs, understand data models, write baseline SQL, and communicate with engineers without an interpreter
- Professional English (B2/C1 preferred)
Nice-to-have
- Hands-on experience with workflow automation, rapid UX prototyping, or LLM agentic orchestration (CrewAI, LangGraph)
- Awareness of energy sector principles (grid topologies, balancing markets, peak shaving, telemetry)
- Exposure to regulatory/cybersecurity frameworks in critical infrastructure (NIS2, IEC 62443)
- Native Romanian fluency (regional market/regulatory context)
Red flags
- Cannot hold a meaningful architecture discussion with engineering leads
- Rigid — can’t shift between Rapid Validation Mode and Stabilization Mode
- “Process-first” management, scribe-style PM work, treating engineers as task-takers, or analysis paralysis
We offer
- Format: Remote
- Search geography: Moldova, Romania, Ukraine
- Direct, continuous partnership with the Founder — a central strategic role, not a downstream execution function
- High-impact position at the core of a scaling team (3 → 10+ engineers), acting as the primary filter against technical debt and requirement drift
- Exposure to a cutting-edge, AI-agent-augmented delivery paradigm (Spec-Driven Development, CrewAI, LangGraph)