AI Product & R&D Manager

About the role

We are seeking a highly analytical and technically fluent AI Product & R&D Manager to lead our internal AI product incubator. The role blends investment evaluation of AI product ideas with rapid prototyping to validate technical feasibility before handing off to core engineering teams.

Key responsibilities

• Review internal and external AI product pitches, assess market opportunities, financial projections, and strategic fit.
• Develop business cases, ROI analyses, and present investment recommendations to executive leadership.
• Evaluate AI unit economics, including inference costs, token usage, and infrastructure scaling.
• Lead rapid proof‑of‑concept development for approved ideas, selecting appropriate AI/ML stacks and architectures.
• Identify and mitigate technical risks, testing model limits to separate hype from capability.
• Define success metrics and KPIs for prototypes, deciding on further investment or termination.
• Orchestrate handoff of validated concepts to product and engineering teams, providing architectural guidance and business constraints.

Required profile

• 5+ years of experience in technical R&D, corporate innovation, incubation, or as a technical founder/entrepreneur with a recent focus on AI/ML.
• Proven ability to review business plans, validate market fit, and assess financial models for new product initiatives.
• Comfort presenting investment proposals and technical findings to senior executives.

Required skills

• Large Language Models (LLMs)
• AI/ML prototyping and rapid proof‑of‑concept development
• AI cost economics, including inference cost analysis and token usage