Sr. Technical Product Manager

We Are Route When shoppers hit "buy," a great customer experience doesn’t end, it’s just getting started. For too long, everything after checkout has been the weakest link in ecommerce: confusing tracking, lost or damaged packages, clunky returns, and missed opportunities to turn first-time buyers into lifelong fans. That's why we built Route. Our mission is simple: we create shopper confidence that fuels brand growth. Route is the leading post-purchase platform for modern ecommerce, trusted by over 13,000 brands and protecting more than $20 billion in gross merchandise value to date. From package protection and industry-leading order tracking to returns and exchanges, cash back loyalty, and engaging product recommendations, Route brings every moment after checkout into one powerful platform, empowering shoppers with visibility and peace of mind while giving merchants loyalty that lasts well beyond the first sale. Since launching in 2018, Route has raised over $250 million from leading investors including Craft Ventures, Hedosophia, and Hanaco Ventures, and has grown into a complete post-purchase ecosystem loved by millions of shoppers and the brands they buy from. Throughout that growth, we've stayed committed to building innovative products that empower our customers and to fostering a people-first, values-driven culture that makes Route a place where great work and great people thrive. We're looking for talented people across the ecommerce space to join us on the next chapter of this adventure. Don't just take our word for it, Discover what life at Route has to offer. The team The Route Product team plays a pivotal role at Route, creating the strategy and roadmaps that empower our Engineering teams to build innovative products for our merchants and consumers. Each product manager collaborates closely with partners across the entire business, which allows this team to continually dive deep into the data, feedback, and technology that drives our product suite at Route. The opportunity As a Technical Product Manager at Route, you will help shape the backend technology that powers our core platform and supports products including Protect, Track, Returns, Engage, and more. In this role, you’ll lead a newly formed team focused on building scalable, reliable foundational systems that enable teams across the organization to move faster and deliver better customer experiences. You’ll partner closely with engineering leadership and cross-functional stakeholders to define technical priorities, influence roadmap direction, and drive architectural decisions with broad organizational impact. From reliability and scalability to security, compliance, and platform enablement, you’ll help guide the evolution of systems that are critical to Route’s continued growth. This is a backend-focused TPM role with meaningful technical influence and wide cross-functional exposure. You’ll thrive in this role if you enjoy engaging in technical discussions, navigating complex tradeoffs, collaborating across teams, and helping translate technical strategy into impactful execution in a fast-moving environment. What you’ll do • Own the team’s roadmap end-to-end across backend platform systems, APIs, and data infrastructure, balancing reliability, platform enablement, and new capability development. • Partner closely with engineering leadership to shape architectural direction, including API design, schema governance, and event-driven system patterns. • Drive prioritization across cross-functional platform requests, helping establish scalable, durable solutions rather than one-off implementations. • Collaborate with data and analytics teams to support warehouse and infrastructure needs, including decisions around event structures, identifiers, and data emission strategy. • Lead product coordination during incident response, helping drive prioritization and decision-making when critical systems are impacted. • Create clear technical documentation, including PRDs and architectural decision records, to support long-term system scalability and maintainability. • Translate complex technical concepts and platform investments into clear business impact for cross-functional and executive stakeholders. • Navigate complex tradeoffs across scalability, speed, reliability, and long-term platform health in a fast-moving environment. • Contribute to a collaborative team culture through thoughtful communication, strong technical judgment, and a long-term mindset focused on building sustainable systems. What we’re looking for • 5+ years of product management experience, including significant experience in technical or platform-focused PM roles supporting backend systems, APIs, data infrastructure, or distributed systems. • Strong technical fluency in backend architecture concepts such as event-driven systems, API design and versioning, schema evolution, idempotency, eventual consistency, and distributed system reliability. • Experience partnering closely with engineering teams on high-scale event ingestion, processing systems, or platform infrastructure with an understanding of operational and scalability tradeoffs. • Experience supporting or partnering with data engineering organizations on data platform initiatives, including familiarity with modern warehouse and transformation tooling such as Snowflake, Databricks, dbt, or similar technologies. • Strong SQL skills with the ability to independently investigate data quality, integrity, and reporting questions. • Experience leading or supporting platform teams that serve internal product or engineering teams, including roadmap intake, prioritization, API contracts, SLA management, and balancing standardization with business needs. • Demonstrated success driving reliability, scalability, or technical debt initiatives that improved platform performance, reduced operational burden, or strengthened system stability. • Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly across technical and non-technical audiences. • Comfortable navigating ambiguity, influencing cross-functional stakeholders, and making thoughtful tradeoff decisions in a fast-moving environment. • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience. Prior engineering experience is a plus. Equal opportunity for all Route is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We embrace diversity and equal opportunity in a serious way. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. The more inclusive we are, the better our work will be. Total Rewards We know our team works best when everyone feels happy, healthy, and supported. We offer to pay 95% - 100% of your health insurance premiums for you and your family, remote or hybrid work arrangements, unlimited PTO, 401k matching, formalized growth opportunities, learning & development, DEI programs & events, and so much more. Pay Transparency Salary for this role: National: $161,000 - $170,000 LA: $161,000 - $170,000 NY: $214,000 - $226,000 SF: $200,000 - $212,000 The cash compensation above includes base salary, and is not reflective of potential commission for employees in eligible roles, or annual bonus targets under Route’s bonus plan for eligible roles. In addition to cash compensation, all Route employees are eligible to participate in Routes equity incentive plan to receive stock options per the terms of the agreement. Some roles may also be eligible for overtime pay. Individual compensation packages are based on a few different factors unique to each candidate, including their career level, skills, experience, specific geographic location qualifications and other job-related reasons.