Founding Product Manager

Requirements

• Language requirement: Fluent in German and English. Non-negotiable - our customers and most farmers are German-speaking
• You have 5-7 years of B2B SaaS product management experience, ideally including a stint at an early-stage startup before product-market fit
• You have built a product line or a major module from 0 to 1 - not just iterated on an existing one. You can talk us through what worked, what did not, and what you learned
• You love discovery. Customer interviews, field research, prototyping, and pilots are your favourite part of the job, not the part you outsource
• You love observing how others do their job. You take the parts that matter, design new workflows around them, and put prototypes in front of users to iterate - rather than running survey-driven roadmaps
• You are AI-fluent. Modern AI tools are part of your daily craft - for discovery synthesis, prototyping, writing, coding. You also have a point of view on how AI reshapes the products we build
• You have an interest or background in food, agriculture, or sustainability. Preferred, not required. We will teach you the domain
• You don't feel like you fulfill all the criteria? We get it: confidence can sometimes hold us back from applying for a job. But guess what?! There is no such thing as a “perfect” candidate. The only thing you need to ensure along the recruiting process and beyond is that the problem that we are solving with Root is one you cannot wait to get out of bed for on Monday morning!

What the job involves

• Build an innovative operating system for the dairy industry from 0 to 1, at the intersection of farmers and dairies
• Dairy is Root's home market. We know it inside out - the players, the workflows, the technology gaps, the people. We see a category-defining opportunity to build a new product line that sits between farmers and dairy processors, and that has the potential to become the connecting piece of our portfolio
• This is a genuinely greenfield role. You will not inherit a backlog. You will define what we build, why, and for whom - then prove it works with a handful of pilot customers before we scale
• Run deep discovery. Spend weeks with farmers, farm technicians, milk procurement teams, and dairy executives on-site. Understand their jobs, KPIs, and frustrations from the inside
• Define new workflows together with our customers. Shape how dairy companies will work in the future. This product line is about setting a new standard, not digitising what already exists - while AI will be at the core of it
• Build hacky prototypes and run pilots. Show, do not tell. Get something tangible in front of 2-3 design partners within weeks
• Assess desirability, feasibility, and viability before we commit serious engineering investment
• Define the v1 spec with engineering and design once we have conviction. Set the team up for delivery
• Onboard the first paying customers and iterate fast. Own the loop
• Decide what we will NOT build. Scope discipline is critical with limited engineering capacity and a customer base that operates on a fixed annual cycle
• You will work side by side with the Head of Product to make the bet, and own the product line end-to-end as it grows. Engineering and design support will scale with traction
• What success looks like at 6 months:
• A first end-to-end prototype tested with real customers
• 3 signed Letters of Intent from new customers
• A concrete, evidence-backed set of build hypotheses for v1
• You will report directly to our Head of Product
• Some of our angel investors that will actively mentor you:
• Mengting Bönsch (Founder & ex-CEO @Kitchenstories) - 0 to 1 product in food
• Alexander Argyros (Founder @BlueLayer, ex-founder @Moonfare) - founder craft and early-stage discovery
• Jan Philipp Thomsen (VP Product @Celonis) - scaling enterprise B2B SaaS
• Vassili Samolis (Director Product @Doordash, ex-Instagram, ex-Pinterest) - product discovery at scale