Principal PM Operations

Reference:

Role 1: Operations (priority)

?

Confirmation of Assignment

Principal Product Manager - Operations, Radiant

Role title

Principal Product Manager, Operations (advertised on Ashby as Senior/Principal; you're hiring at principal level, not senior)

Number of vacancies

1 • Top priority of the three roles (Ops, then Storage, then MLOps)

Agreed date to review first CV shortlist

To confirm: Could we lock in a call to review the first shortlist across all three roles? I'd suggest Thursday 5 November 2026 at 10:00 GMT, then a weekly or fortnightly catch-up with Sofi, Joao and me.

Location

UK or EU, no further east than GMT+2 • Not France or Italy • To confirm: Is there a London office, and is that the base for UK hires?

WFH policy

To confirm: Is the role fully remote, or do you expect office days?

Relocation

To confirm: Would you support relocation into the UK, or should we stick to people already in the UK or EU?

Right to work

We check and verify before submitting anyone • To confirm: Can you sponsor UK visas, and how do you employ people in EU countries (own entity or employer of record)?

About Radiant

AI infrastructure company running dense, large-scale GPU and CPU compute, including the latest NVIDIA architectures, for AI training, deployment and scaling. Product is moving from generalist PMs to a vertical model where each PM owns a dedicated engineering track. Startup pace, with speed favoured over structure.

Role responsibilities

Owns the hardware and infrastructure lifecycle: what happens from new kit arriving in a DC to it running in the platform • Coordinates across support, customer, DC ops and platform teams • Owns strategy, roadmap and delivery for internal tooling, CMDB, service catalogues, operational workflows and third-party tool connections • Sets up reliable sources of truth for infrastructure, services, customers, environments, ownership and configuration • Works with SRE, infrastructure, security and support to cut operational friction and improve self-service • Build vs buy calls on third-party tooling

Team structure

Owns a dedicated engineering track under the new vertical PM model • Works right alongside engineers and is expected to challenge architecture and understand how things are built

Reporting lines

Reports to the CPO • Long-term path to Group PM for the function • To confirm: Is the CPO Sofi, and who are the key engineering peers for this track?

Essential skills & experience

Subject matter expert in hardware and infrastructure lifecycle, not a generalist PM • Strongly technical, ideally an engineering background (easier to coach PM skills than technical depth) • Experience coordinating across support, customer, DC ops and platform teams • Background in an organisation running significant on-prem infrastructure: hyperscalers, hedge funds, London Metal Exchange or similar • Technical fluency across APIs, Kubernetes and cloud, inventory and dependency data, automation, observability and security • Principal level: too senior or detached from hands-on work won't fit (e.g. an SVP at Amazon) • Actively enjoys ambiguity and speed rather than tolerating it

Desirable skills & experience

AI-specific experience not required • NetBox, ServiceNow, Terraform, Grafana, Jira or similar • Distributed systems concepts (retries, idempotency, eventual consistency, failure handling) • Open to people who've stepped back from a Head or Lead role to build a function from scratch • Red flags: more than one job lasting under a year, no technical background, too far removed from hands-on technical work

Salary

Base from 100,000 at principal level • Total package into the 200,000 range including bonus and backdated equity • Flexible for the right profile: find the person first, then make it work • To confirm: Is the bonus 30% of base?

Benefits

25 days annual leave • Dedicated learning time • Private medical insurance via Bupa • Cycle to work scheme • Gympass subscription • Company shares programme • Enhanced parental pay and leave

Sell of the role

Build a function from scratch at principal level, with a route to Group PM • Own a dedicated engineering track in a new vertical product model • Engineering depth is valued more than PM credentials, so technical people get real weight here • Product ownership over some of the most advanced GPU infrastructure running anywhere • Package into the 200k range with backdated equity, and flexibility for the right person

Bespoke interview screening questions

Our pre-screen will focus on: Hands-on hardware and infrastructure lifecycle experience, walked through in detail (two candidates have already failed for not being technical enough) • Engineering background and ability to challenge architecture • Coordinating support, customer, DC ops and platform teams • Time in on-prem-heavy environments • Real appetite for startup ambiguity and speed • Job history, checking for more than one move under a year

Interview process

1. People screen • 2. One-hour interview with Joao on culture and technical depth (first gate) • 3. One-hour technical interview with one product and one engineering interviewer • 4. Final with the CTO and CCO • To confirm: How long are stages 1 and 4, are any in person, and what's the target end-to-end timeframe?

Submission process

Via Ashby, with Adam Whitehurst added to the role • Shared Slack channel between Radiant, Trust in SODA and Trinnovo as the main channel for candidate updates • To confirm: What feedback turnaround can we expect on CVs and after each stage?

Recruitment activity

Two candidates have already failed for not being technical enough • We'll search hyperscalers, hedge funds, exchanges and other on-prem-heavy businesses, prioritising engineers who've moved into product • To confirm: How long has the role been open, and which channels have you tried?

Start date

To confirm: Ideal start date and the longest notice period you'd accept?

Terms and partnership type agreed

To confirm: Could you confirm the terms we're working on for these three roles?