ML Product Manager Job Description Template

The machine learning product manager owns products whose behavior is learned rather than specified. The role requires enough technical understanding to reason about what a model can plausibly do, what data it needs and how confident anyone should be in its output, and enough product discipline to define success in terms users would recognize rather than in model metrics.

Typical Duties and Responsibilities

• Own the roadmap for machine learning powered product areas
• Define problems in terms that can be modeled and measured
• Work with scientists and engineers on feasibility and data requirements
• Define success metrics connecting model performance to user outcomes
• Design experiences that handle model uncertainty and error gracefully
• Plan data collection, annotation and its cost
• Coordinate launches including evaluation and staged rollout
• Communicate model capability and limitations honestly across the business
• Monitor production performance and prioritize improvements
• Manage expectations about what machine learning will and will not solve

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical or quantitative field

Required Skills and Experience

• 3+ years of product management including machine learning products
• Sufficient technical understanding to reason about model feasibility
• Experience defining evaluation that reflects user value
• Ability to design for uncertain and occasionally wrong output
• Understanding of data requirements and annotation cost
• Analytical skill with experiment results
• Honest communication about capability
• Good working relationship with technical teams

Preferred Qualifications

• Technical background or prior engineering experience
• Experience with a product that failed and understanding why