Senior/Principal Product Manager, Connectivity Observability

Isovalent is the company founded by the creators of Cilium and eBPF. Isovalent builds open-source software and enterprise solutions solving networking, security, and observability needs for modern cloud native infrastructure. The flagship technology, Cilium, is the choice of leading global organizations, including Adobe, AWS, Capital One, Datadog, GitLab, Google, and many more. Isovalent has headquarters in Cupertino, CA (US) and Zurich, Switzerland (EU) and is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Google, M12 (Microsoft), Grafana Labs and Cisco Investments.
The Community you will join:

Are you interested in working with the global open source community and enterprises worldwide to revolutionize network and application visibility using eBPF technology? We are looking for a Senior/Principal Product Manager, Connectivity Observability who is passionate about empowering customers with powerful visibility into the health of connectivity between modern API-driven workloads on Kubernetes. With this role, you’ll help guide our contributions to open source Cilium, which has become the default networking solution for Kubernetes distributions from industry giants like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, as well as to our Isovalent Cilium Enterprise product.
About the role:

As the first Senior/Principal Product Manager, Connectivity Observability at Isovalent, you are the voice of the customer inside Isovalent. You will lead the vision and roadmap for connectivity observability solutions at Isovalent, giving customers rich eBPF-powered visibility into the health, performance, and failures of connectivity between applications, without sidecars. If you:

• have learned the hard way that “It’s always DNS”.

• have a deep understanding of L2-L7 network protocols, and how they can break

• love creating observability workflows that help users quickly root cause issues.

• have a desire to work alongside the most knowledgeable eBPF engineers in the world and build expertise in this exciting technology.

• believe Kubernetes is the future of infrastructure and want to build your expertise.

• are passionate about working with (and learning from) customers.

Then this is the role for you. To learn more about the power of eBPF-powered connectivity observability, please read our blog or try our Hands-on Lab.
A typical day:

• Work with customers to understand the challenges they face related to the health, performance, and failures of network connectivity for applications running on Kubernetes.

• Define the product’s vision, build a roadmap, and write product requirements by utilizing your expertise in infrastructure observability tools and hands-on experience troubleshooting real-world network connectivity issues in large-scale environments.

• Work closely with engineering on all the trade-offs involved with how we build the product, from understanding performance and scalability impacts of various designs to weighing in on product usability and workflows.

• Stay abreast of the competitive landscape, mastering industry trends, insights, and best practices, while actively sharing this knowledge with the team and stakeholders.

• Work with marketing to help clearly articulate the value and ROI for a new feature, helping to create demos, slides, and other materials that help sales & customers understand the value.

• Work closely with customer success and sales to make sure that customers understand and are effectively realizing the vision of the product capabilities you have introduced.

Your Expertise:

• Strong technical expertise and in-depth understanding of networking protocols (L2 through L7), including Ethernet, IP, TCP/UDP/ICMP, TLS, DNS, and HTTP

• Demonstrated experience troubleshooting real-world network connectivity issues in large-scale environments, utilizing Linux command line and network tooling

• 3+ years of experience as a user or vendor of infrastructure observability tools, with a focus on delivering high-quality products and advocating for customers

• Familiarity with Kubernetes and Kubernetes networking, preferably with hands-on experience delivering or running software on the Kubernetes platform

• Expertise in the observability space, with a deep understanding of the industry landscape, trends, and best practices

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, enabling effective communication with both technical and non-technical audiences, and the ability to present and defend ideas

• Strong bias for action, with a proactive and results-oriented mindset

• Ideal qualifications include familiarity with eBPF, existing product management experience, and exposure to cloud networking concepts from major cloud providers (e.g., AWS, VPCs, ENI, ELB)

Who we are:

Isovalent is driven by a simple goal: Building amazing technology and making our customers successful with it. Beginning with our open source roots, building outstanding technology with a great team continues to be at the core of everything we do. We work every day to inspire our customers with our products and exceed their expectations. Beyond technology many Isonauts share a love of the outdoors, running, hiking, skiing, climbing and biking.

Our Core Values:

• Remote First: We strongly believe in a remote-first philosophy. Our work and communication culture allows teams to be successful regardless of their location.
• Mutual Respect: It is the cornerstone of our values to foster trust and create a safe space for growth and innovation and is at the heart of everything we do.
• Open- Source & Transparency: Our culture is deeply rooted in Open Source principles. We thrive on openness, transparency, and inclusion.
• Work & Adventure Balance: The work we do is very exciting and challenging. We encourage hard-work but also encourage our team to take the time needed to recharge and balance life. We are here to support each other in that personal balance.
• Personal Growth: This means different things to each of us and at Isovalent, we are dedicated to supporting your unique growth objectives, whatever they may be.

Why should you join us:

At Isovalent, our continuous endeavor is to create an environment where our Isonauts can embrace their authentic selves. Central to our daily operations is a deep-rooted commitment to mutual respect. We value and honor diverse perspectives, actively listening to one another. As a globally distributed team spanning nine timezones, we embrace the richness that our diverse locations bring.

At our company, we prioritize the well-being, motivation, focus and creativity of our employees. With these objectives in mind, we have developed comprehensive wellness programs, tailored to their needs. We have cultivated a work environment that fosters a genuine love for what we do, and we believe you will feel the same.

Our benefits package varies by location and may include pension, 401K, health insurance and more depending on the country of employment. We prioritize company-wide offsites to foster team connection, cross-department collaboration, and time to strengthen our relationships and culture. We offer a Flexible Time Off philosophy, encouraging a minimum number of days per year for rejuvenation. Our Mental Health and Wellbeing program supports individuals in finding their own strategies for work-life balance through activities like mindfulness and yoga, complemented by employee support channels and a monthly stipend. We offer inclusive parental leave and provide competitive compensation packages tailored to each role.

Isovalent is committed to fostering a culture that celebrates diversity, inclusion and an authentic workspace. We understand that not everyone who applies from a more diverse background will meet all the requirements on day one. If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification, we encourage you to apply anyway. Also, if you have a disability, please let us know if there’s any way we can make the interview process better for you; we’re happy to accommodate!

Please note that benefits vary by country. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask your Talent Acquisition Partner.

As part of the hiring process, Isovalent may conduct a background check through a 3rd party with an applicant’s consent. Result of any background check will be considered as part of the hiring process, but may not necessarily disqualify a candidate from employment.

Minimum salary of $160,000 to maximum $230,000.

These pay ranges are intended to cover roles based across the United States. The actual offer depends on various factors including geographic location and review of experience, knowledge, skills and abilities of the applicant. Compensation for the candidates outside of the US will vary depending on your local market.

Location: In this role, you can work remotely anywhere in the United States or EMEA timezone.