Product Manager

Location: Palo Alto, CA or Waltham, MA (hybrid)

Small business owners don't have a risk department. They spend their time and energy starting and growing a business. NEXT's mission is to help entrepreneurs thrive, and we're using AI to make business insurance simple, fast, and affordable enough that it never costs them a day of work.

We're an AI technology company that happens to also be a fully licensed insurance carrier. Because we're a full-stack carrier, AI isn't a layer bolted onto someone else's product. It's in the underwriting, the pricing, the classification, and increasingly in how the product itself gets built. We're rebuilding the core judgment loops of a hundreds-of-years old industry, and doing it with a lean team, which is exactly why AI matters.

We underwrite our own risk, build our own systems, and own the entire value chain, so the product decisions made here show up directly in what a customer pays and how fast they get covered. Since 2016 we've insured hundreds of thousands of small businesses across the country. As a subsidiary of Munich Re and ERGO, our growth is backed by the financial strength of one of the world's leading reinsurance and insurance groups.

About the role 

Business Owner's Policy is our flagship product, and this squad owns it. Today it's run by insurance product managers carrying both the insurance and the technology load. We're hiring a PM to take the technology and GTM half: roadmap, technical solutions, delivery, packaging, design, and channel go-to-market. The IPMs stay the authority on the insurance product itself, from underwriting guidelines to new coverages, limits, and industries.

One key part of this job is using AI to grow the product relentlessly. That means AI in the GTM, AI that makes everyone in the squad work more efficiently together, and building tools that help the team build the insurance product itself. We don't care where the leverage comes from. We care that you find it, and that the squad moves faster and the product gets better every month because you're on it, using AI.

You, insurance product managers, along with the rest of the squad carry the same OKRs. That means you're accountable for knowing the insurance product well enough to make sound decisions about how to grow it, not just for shipping what's handed to you. If you want to work on financial products with real revenue (in the $xxxM range), a complex and interesting technical surface, and massive ceiling to change how it continues to get built, this is the job.

What You’ll Do: 

• Drive the roadmap. You are responsible for making sure that  sizings get done, and make the long-term versus short-term trade-off explicit rather than implied. You and insurance product managers agree on the plan together; you're ultimately accountable for it
• Ship a true Business Owner’s Policy (BOP) product. Take a bundled product that customers understand and buy in a single flow, and close the distance between what we sell today and what makes a great BOP product
• Own go-to-market with the channels. NEXT distribute our insurance products through 3  channels: Direct, Agent, and Partnership. You will work closely with the cross-functional groups to focus and deliver on a plan of action
• Package and merchandise products. How coverage is presented and packaged to small business owners and to insurance agents are a product decision, and it's yours
• Build a great user experience. Build delightful UX that drives conversion increase and underwriting quality improvements
• Run planning and executive communication. Run product strategy planning and host monthly progress update and strategy discussion session with the executive team 
• Learn insurance. Coverages, appetite, filings, loss ratio and more. You won't be the authority on it, but you will be fluent, and the squad will feel it if you aren't

What We Need: 

• 8+ years in product management, shipping customer-facing products with meaningful revenue attached. Bonus if that product was complex, regulated, or financial, where the details are the hard part
• User obsession backed by ruthless prioritization. You understand your user's pain points well enough to cut the roadmap down to the few things that actually change their experience, and you stay focused on delivering that impact
• Exceptional executive communication. You can compress a complex situation into something a VP and chief executives understand clearly and respond to.
• Direct experience working with distribution channels or GTM teams. You've been the pseudo-PMM for a product before, or close to it
• Comfort building software that sells a complex, regulated, or financial product where the details matters
• A habit of challenging the status quo by getting to the core of a problem, not by having stronger opinions or louder voice than everyone else in the room
• Ability to use AI tools to accelerate and automate your workflows without compromising quality and critical thinking

Unstoppable Qualities: 

• Background in insurance, fintech, lending, or another regulated category.
• Experience selling to small businesses, where the buyer is the owner and the attention span is thirty seconds
• Strong analytical skills and experience. You have deep experience working directly with data, as well as working with data sciences partners 
• Strong design partnership instincts. You brief well and you know when the answer is a UX problem, not a feature.

Salary Range:

The range displayed on this job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire base salaries for the position in the location(s) listed. Within the range, individual pay is determined by additional factors, including, without limitation, job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. ERGO NEXT employees are also potentially eligible for our annual performance-based incentive program, in addition to our benefits package, consisting of our partially subsidized medical plan, fully subsidized vision/dental options, life insurance, disability insurance, 401(k), flexible paid time off, parental leave and more.

US annual base salary range for this full-time position:

Palo Alto, CA: $180,000 - $244,000

Waltham, MA: $163,000 - $220,000

Note on Fraudulent Recruiting _We have become aware that there may be fraudulent recruiting attempts being made by people posing as representatives of ERGO NEXT Insurance. These scams may involve fake job postings, unsolicited emails, or messages claiming to be from our recruiters or hiring managers. 

Please note, we do not ask for sensitive information via chat, text, or social media, and any email communications will come from the domain @next-insurance.com or @nextinsurance.com. Additionally, Next Insurance will never ask for payment, fees, or purchases to be made by a job applicant. All applicants are encouraged to apply directly to our open jobs via the careers page on our website. Interviews are generally conducted via Zoom video conference unless the candidate requests other accommodations. 

If you believe that you have been the target of an interview/offer scam by someone posing as a representative of Next Insurance, please do not provide any personal or financial information. You can find additional information about this type of scam and report any fraudulent employment offers via the Federal Trade Commission's website (https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/job-scams), or you can contact your local law enforcement agency._   

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that some underrepresented people are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At ERGO NEXT, we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and respectful workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

One of our core values is 'Play as a Team'; this means making sure everyone has an equal chance to participate and make a difference. We win by playing together. ERGO Next Insurance is an equal opportunity employer and prioritizes building a diverse and inclusive workplace. We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants of any type and do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, genetic information or characteristic, gender identity and expression, veteran status, or other non-job-related characteristics or other prohibited grounds specified in applicable federal, state, and local laws. ERGO Next's policy is to comply with all applicable laws related to nondiscrimination and equal opportunity and will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.