Founding Product Manager, Control Plane

ABOUT RUNLAYER AI is transforming how every company operates, but most enterprises are stuck. They want to move fast with AI Agents, tools, and workflows, but they can't do it safely. We're fixing that. Our team built AI Actions for OpenAI, shipped Zapier Agents to millions of users, and launched the first remote MCP server with Anthropic. We helped establish the protocol, and now we're building the platform enterprises need to actually put MCP to work. Runlayer is one platform for MCPs, Skills, and Agents: purpose-built security, fine-grained governance, and complete observability so organizations can go all-in on AI across the entire company without the risk. We just raised a $30M Series A led by Felicis, with participation from Khosla Ventures, bringing our total raised to $42M. Already trusted by Gusto, Instacart, Opendoor, dbt Labs, Cursor, and Decagon. We're a team of 35, mostly engineers, shipping fast. Agent operators on Runlayer grew 5x in four weeks while human operators stayed flat. The shift to agentic work is already showing up in our own usage. ABOUT THE ROLE As the Founding PM for the Control Plane, you'll own one governance plane for the full agent lifecycle: every MCP, skill, plugin, and agent, governed and observable across every surface an agent can touch. Today agents sprawl across every platform with little oversight; you'll build the one layer that sits between their agentic harnesses and the hundreds of SaaS apps their agents reach. You'll work directly with the CPO, owning the roadmap from discovery through shipped product. WHY YOU'LL THRIVE HERE - Impact: Own the control plane that lets enterprises adopt AI agents without losing control.

• Excellence: Work closely with founders who helped establish MCP and ship fast.
• Ownership: Own the full control-plane surface end to end, from discovery through shipped product.

• Run discovery with security and IT buyers and the developers and agents who hit the proxy, turning signals into a ranked roadmap.
• Make decisions, prioritize the roadmap, and ship with engineers weekly.

• Founder or early-PM experience; you've built product processes from zero.
• Fluency with the buyer/user split: the CISO/IT team who buys governance and the developer or agent who lives under it.
• Technical depth: you read code and reason about proxies, policy engines, OAuth/identity, and audit pipelines.
• Customer obsession: you run your own discovery calls and can name five customers from your last role by first name.
• Strong writing; you make your case in clear PRDs, not slide decks.
• AI-native, with real opinions on how agents and tools should be governed.

• Background in detection and response, DLP/PII/PHI, secrets/vault, or compliance-driven enterprise sales (SOC 2, HIPAA, NIST).
• Shipped observability or policy products where winning meant covering more, in more detail, than anyone else.

• Competitive salary and equity — compensation that reflects your expertise and customer-facing responsibilities.
• Paid time off — paid vacation, paid sick leave, and paid parental leave.
• Professional development — budget for conferences, courses, and certifications in AI, enterprise software, and customer success.
• Top-tier equipment — your choice of laptop and accessories to create your ideal work environment.
• Health benefits — comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage.
• Customer interaction opportunities — work directly with innovative companies and see the immediate impact of your work.

• Build a one‑page “Control Plane Impact Dashboard” in Excel that quantifies how you’ve improved security, governance, or observability for AI/ML products (e.g., % reduction in policy violations, latency improvements, cost savings). Include clear formulas, visualizations, and a brief narrative; attach it to your resume or bring it to the interview to demonstrate the exact analytical rigor Runlayer expects.
• Craft a portfolio piece that walks through a real‑world “MCP rollout” you led—start with the problem statement, outline the product roadmap, detail the security/permission model you designed, and show the post‑launch metrics (adoption, incident rate). Highlight any integrations with OpenAI, Anthropic, or Zapier, as Runlayer’s team values hands‑on experience with these ecosystems.
• During the interview, be ready to discuss how you’d design “fine‑grained governance” for a multi‑tenant AI platform. Prepare a short whiteboard exercise: define user roles, policy hierarchy, and audit trails, then explain how you’d instrument observability (logs, metrics, alerts) and validate compliance—all using concrete examples from past work.
• Emphasize remote‑first product leadership: cite specific tools (e.g., Notion for docs, Miro for remote workshops, Slack/Discord for async decision‑making) and rituals you’ve instituted to keep distributed teams aligned on high‑stakes AI safety goals. Runlayer’s hybrid NYC/remote model will look for proven self‑management and clear communication habits.
• When negotiating compensation, reference Runlayer’s recent $30 M Series A round and the scarcity of senior PM talent with both AI‑agent and security expertise. Aim for a base + equity package that reflects market rates for founding‑level PMs in the Bay Area, adjusted for the US‑wide remote cost‑of‑living flexibility, and ask for a performance‑linked equity refresh tied to key milestones (e.g., first enterprise MCP adoption).