About the Role
Phoenix is the Autonomous Commerce Platform for DTC Founders. We unify storefronts, checkout, payments, and operations into one platform where AI agents handle the operational grind and merchants focus on growth.
We set out to build the “Shopify of Direct Response” and along the way recognized something bigger. Direct response is roughly a third of all ecommerce transactions, a trillion-dollar market chronically overlooked by Silicon Valley. The merchants who run it are obsessive about tooling.
They live and die by velocity, conversion,ánd margin. They have no brand moats. They only compete on operations, which is exactly what makes them ripe for agentic disruptionánd the earliest, fastest adopters of AI agents in commerce.
That insight reframed Phoenix from“the Shopify of DR” to the** AI Agent Platform for DTC Founders.**
This is a category-defining bet,ánd we are running at it from a position of strength.
Where We Are Today
- 8-figure ARR growing 100%+ YoY
- Strong unit economicsánd efficient growth
- Rapid merchant adoptionánd expanding market presence
- Backed by experienced operatorsánd investors with a history of buildingánd scaling successful businesses
Why Now
This is a rare opportunity for a technical leader to step into a company with proven revenue, product-market fit, an established team,ánd a large market opportunity.
Three things make this an inflection point:
- Product-market fit is established. Demand continues to grow, merchant adoption is accelerating,ánd Phoenix is outperforming expectations.
There is an opportunity to define a category. While many companies are building AI tools for commerce, few are focused on helping sophisticated DTC operators automate revenue-generating decisions at scale.
Our customers are AI-ready. They adopt technology quickly when it drives measurable business outcomes, creating an ideal environment for agentic products.
Why This Role Exists
We found the third of ecommerce that Silicon Valley forgot,ánd by the end of this year we expect to have out-shipped the legacy players who has coasted on this market for a decade. We move fast. Our engineering team is strongánd getting stronger. Our merchants adopt what we build because it makes them more money.
The product surface for next year is set: storefronts, checkout, payments, the merchant OS (our CRM), and the Phoenix AI agent. It will evolve,ánd when it does, the change has to come from a smart place: deep understanding of our merchants, the market, our competitors,ánd what our team can actually build. Not from a whiteboard.
At this stage the job is a grind by design: living in the CRM daily, testing the AI agent the way a merchant would, answering an engineer’s question about moving subscriptions from one gateway to another within the hour, knowing our top 25 merchants' funnels cold. It is also a seat at the table. Our founderánd CEO wants a product leader who can sit across from himánd discuss where the 12-18 months go, with the credibility that comes from knowing the product, the merchants,ánd the market better than anyone else in the room.
Staying close to the realities on the ground is not a stage we are passing through. It is how our entire leadership team operates today,ánd it is how we intend to operate for the rest of this company’s history. We are allergic to ivory towers.
We have strong principal-level PMsánd engineers with deep domain expertise. What we are missing is the product leader who sets the bar for them every day, sees the bug before the merchant reports it, turns “shipped” into & “adoptedánd moving the number,”ánd brings that ground truth into the bets we make.
This is not a “set the visionánd delegate” role. We are hiring a VP of Product who:
- knows our product, our competitors,ánd our merchants insideánd out
- runs the roadmap as a living set of bets, not a document. Every item has an ROI case, a reason it sits where it sits,ánd a trade-off the team understands
- gives tactical, in-depth feedback on every spec, prototype,ánd PR that matters
- holds the bar for PMsánd engineers, as a drill sergeant when needed
- owns the scoreboard against our competitorsánd moves it
- is a real thinking partner to the CEO on where Phoenix places its next bets
What You’ll Own
The product: Storefronts, checkout, payments, the merchant OS,ánd the AI agent. Roadmap, sequencing, specs, quality,ánd rollout. And a much higher bar for the word “shipped”. A feature flag is not shipped. An announcement is not shipped. Live in production on the date we promised is not shipped either. Shipped means merchants found it, adopted it,ánd would be annoyed if we took it away. It means the execution was elegant, the business problem it was built for is gone,ánd we can draw a straight line from it to Phoenix making more money or a merchant growing faster. Anything short of that is still in progress,ánd you are the person who refuses to call it done.
The scoreboard: Objectively measurable superiority against our direct competitors. Revenue per visitor, checkout conversion, page speed, approval rate, activation, retention,ánd user experience, benchmarked consistently. You have accounts on every competitor’s productánd you actually use them, so you know exactly where we are better and where we are not. A/B tests with real sample sizes,ánd the honesty to know when we are winning versus when merchant behavior is flattering us.
The PM team: Leadánd raise a small team of principal-level product managers. Set the standard for what a Phoenix PM ships: PRDs with prototypes, specs with test cases, launches with reference merchantsánd KPIs. Coach fast, decide fast.
Merchant truth: Direct relationships with our top merchants. You sit in their channels, you are on calls weekly, you know their funnelsánd their complaints from memory,ánd repeat pain points become shipped fixes in weeks, not quarters. Merchants want to talk to you because you know their pain pointsánd our product cold. They leave the conversation better at running their business,ánd you leave it knowing more about what we should build next.
The AI-native product: Make the Phoenix agent something merchants rely on for production-grade decisions on real revenue, not a demo. You test it the way a merchant would, you define what “good” means,ánd you hold the line on quality.
The delivery machine: Partner with the CTOánd the engineering leads so productánd engineering move as one motion. Specs before delivery, every card with a date, slips visible before anyone asks,ánd a sniff for wasted engineering hours. You kill work that doesn’t earn its place.
Competitive intelligence: Know every competitor’s product, pricing,ánd roadmap better than they do. When a competitor or a major platform ships something material, our response memo exists within 48 hours.
Who You Are
A builder, not a coordinator. You have been the #1 or #2 product leader at a growth-stage company, you have owned a product surface where conversion, latency,ánd reliability carried direct economic consequences,ánd you stepped up in scope rather than back.
A missile, not a passenger. You are an entrepreneur at heart who operates with a lot of autonomyánd solves problems instead of escalating them. You don’t bring us problems; you bring solutionsánd the resources you need to execute.
You have taken a product from behind a competitor to ahead on a measurable metric,ánd you can show the before and after.
In the weeds by choice. You use the product every day, you would rather test a flow yourself than read a report about it,ánd you see the bug before the customer reports it. A product leader who “stays above the details” makes you uncomfortable.
Technical enough to be dangerous. You read PRs, you can follow a gateway migration or understand why a cron job is locking a table,ánd you hold your own in an architecture conversation. You are a power user of modern AI tools, you prototype before you spec,ánd you have shipped AI into production with real opinions on determinism, evaluations,ánd building reliably on non-deterministic layers.
You have built for customers whose revenue depends on your product. Fintech, payments, commerce, or another domain where your conversion, reliability,ánd speed show up directly in your customer’s P&L, so you already know what it costs when the product is downánd the customer finds out first.
A drill sergeant with no ego. You give very tactical, in-depth feedback on the work PMsánd engineers are actually doing. You hold the bar, address underperformance early, tell people directly,ánd admit your own mistakes fast. .
Executionánd strategy, not one or the other. You ship every weekánd kill work that doesn’t matter,ánd you can hold your own in a three-year strategy debate because your opinions come from the ground. You also do the unglamorous parts: rollout plans, launch education, incident reviews, the requirements doc nobody wants to write. .
Startup-forged. You have thrived in fast, resource-constrained, high-intensity environments in the last 5 years.
No tolerance for mediocrity. The individuals that thrive here hold themselvesánd others to an extremely high standard with no exceptions. We’re here to build a generational company.
Huge Plus
Ecommerce, direct response, or high-risk payments experience. You have built checkout, subscription billing, or payments products for merchants, or you have worked inside a company in our competitive set.
You have run a DTC or direct response store yourselfánd know what a broken checkout feels like on a Friday night.
You still write code, or you build working prototypes with AI tools instead of slide decks.
You have shipped an AI agent or LLM-powered feature that customers rely on in production.
You have founded a company, or been an early operator who owned the outcome.
Leadership Traits We Value
- High ownership
- Decisiveness
- Strong recruitingánd talent development capabilities
- Accountability
- Product judgment
- Calm under pressure
- Builder mentality
Culture
These are the values that guide how we operate:
All In to Win — Operate with urgency, intensity,ánd a relentless bar for excellence.
A Players Only — Only hire, develop,ánd keep A players. Protect talent density.
Merchant First — Merchants are why we exist. Every decision measured by merchant impact.
Entrepreneurial Spirit — Move like a Day One company. Fast, scrappy, hungry. Everyone owns.
Execution Over Ego — Best ideas win regardless of source. Statusánd titles do not matter.
