Senior Product Manager – Space in Southampton

The Role

Ready to help build the software that gets missions off the ground? We are looking for a Senior Product Manager to own and drive the strategy, roadmap, and growth of Karvel, our on‑board software platform for space missions. This is a dual‑focus role: you will evolve the product for the satellite teams already using it, while identifying and capturing new market opportunities across in‑orbit operations, constellations, space exploration, and human flight.

You will work at the intersection of a deep technical engineering team and the agencies and mission operators who depend on this software in high‑stakes, time‑critical situations, where reliability is non‑negotiable.

As Karvel scales and evolves, you may be expected to build and lead a larger product team, shaping the product function within the business unit from the ground up.

This position is open across our offices in Portugal, Germany, the US, and the UK.

What You’ll Do

Product Strategy & Roadmap

• Define and own the product vision, strategy, and roadmap aligned with business objectives and end‑user needs.
• Translate space industry standards and operational realities into clearly‑defined product requirements to be developed, tested, and maintained.

Discovery & User Research

• Establish continuous discovery practices with satellite engineering teams and operational users, combining qualitative research and product analytics to uncover latent needs and pain points.
• Benchmark against competitive and adjacent solutions across the flight software and space systems landscape.

Delivery & Execution

• Partner closely with engineering leads to shape solutions, write clear specifications, prioritize the backlog and drive agile delivery ceremonies, ensuring teams have the context they need to make autonomous, high‑quality decisions.
• Define and track product metrics (adoption, integration and qualification time, mission reliability outcomes, customer satisfaction).

Growth & Go‑to‑Market

• Collaborate with sales, pre‑sales, and business development to support bids, proposals, and technical demonstrations, while identifying expansion opportunities.
• Represent the product at industry events, conferences, and working groups to build visibility and credibility in the space community.

Team Building & Leadership

• Recruit, mentor, and lead a team of functional analysts and product owners.
• Establish product management best practices, frameworks, and tooling.
• Foster a culture of evidence‑based decision‑making, user empathy, and outcome orientation.

What We’re Looking For

Must‑Have

• Strong knowledge of the space industry, including its technical, regulatory, and operational landscape.
• Proven experience in product management, ideally including time in a senior or lead PM role on complex B2B/B2G software platforms.
• Proven track record of owning a product end‑to‑end: from vision and strategy through delivery and measurable business outcomes.
• Experience with technically complex, data‑intensive products (real‑time systems, geospatial platforms, sensor fusion, C2/C4I, or similar).
• Strong ability to engage with and influence senior stakeholders, including government and public‑sector clients.
• Demonstrated experience working with cross‑functional teams (engineering, sales) in agile environments.
• Fluent English (written and spoken). Portuguese is a strong advantage.

Nice‑to‑Have

• Experience with GIS/mapping platforms, AIS data, or command‑and‑control software.
• Background in growing a product team or establishing a product function within an engineering‑led organization.
• Familiarity with government/space procurement cycles and long sales processes.
• Experience with safety‑critical software development standards (CMMI, DO-178C, or similar).

How You Can Inspire

• You adapt fast and turn sharp, critical thinking into good decisions for the project.
• You are genuinely curious and challenge what needs to change and make bold calls.
• You see AI as the biggest shift of this generation and you want to be part of shaping it.
• When there is no map, you start drawing one rather than waiting for someone else to.

What We Offer

• Private health insurance.
• Employee Assistance Programme (mental health, legal, financial support).
• Home office support.
• Extra holidays: 2 additional days after year one, more as time goes on.
• Extra parental leave: 2 additional months fully paid.
• Gradual return‑to‑work support: We’ll help you ease back from long breaks.
• Sabbatical programme for long‑term employees.
• Training, mentorship, and growth opportunities: we'll invest in where you want to go next.

The salary range for this role in Germany is between 64,000-99,000€.

About Critical Software

Every day we work on missions across industries as diverse as aerospace, space, defence, transport, telecoms, government, energy, finance, and healthcare. Building better and safer isn’t a slogan. It’s how we show up in the world.

Critical Software is a proud Benefit Corporation: a for‑profit business legally committed to positive impact on society, workers, the community, and the environment — in addition to profit.

We are an equal opportunity workplace. If you need any adjustment in your recruitment process to show us what you can do, please let us know.

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