Principal Product Manager- Calico Platform

A once-in-a-decade shift is reshaping enterprise infrastructure. Nearly every enterprise is moving toward a single, self-hosted platform that can run both containers and virtual machines — to raise hardware utilization, cut costs, and simplify operations. Steep price hikes from legacy virtualization vendors are accelerating the shift, pushing organizations to migrate their VM estates onto Kubernetes at speed — each move carrying unique and complex networking requirements.

At the same time, enterprises are taking AI applications and AI agents from pilot to production, and increasingly hosting their own open LLMs to control token costs and keep models close to the proprietary data that lives in their data centers. It all converges on one requirement: a single platform that can host containers and VMs together — spanning data centers and regions, with enterprise-grade HA and DR, high performance, low latency, and massive scale.

The networking that makes these converged platforms work is extraordinarily complex and almost always on the critical path. Tigera has built the best-in-class networking solution for this new generation of converged platforms — and this role sits at the center of that opportunity.

We are hiring a Principal Product Manager to own a set of high-impact, strategic initiatives across Tigera's product portfolio. This is a senior, high-ownership role spanning strategy through execution: for each initiative you take on, you will define product vision, shape go-to-market, and partner directly with engineering, sales, marketing, and ecosystem partners to bring new capabilities to market.

Your work will span the portfolio — from extending Calico's converged networking for VM workloads in Kubernetes, to newer products such as Lynx, to emerging AI- and agent-focused initiatives. Your first focus area will be matched to your strengths and our priorities, and the mix will evolve as the business grows — so this is a role for a product leader who wants range, not a single lane.

For this position, we are looking to hire in the San Francisco Bay Area (US), hybrid at our San Francisco or San Jose office. 

San Francisco Bay Area Salary Range: $220,000 - $240,000 OTE

• Product vision & roadmap for major initiatives across the portfolio — Calico, Lynx, and emerging AI-focused products — from MVP to GA and the phased roadmap that follows, sequenced by customer value and revenue impact.
• Competitive positioning in the Kubernetes networking and security market. You will craft differentiated narratives that lead with platform value — unified networking, best-in-class microsegmentation and DNS policy, cluster-mesh, observability — rather than competing feature-for-feature at the dataplane layer.
• Go-to-market strategy across both sales-led motions (sales enablement, crisp platform pitches, close partnership with sales on qualified opportunities) and partner-led motions with the ecosystem of platform and infrastructure partners.
• Customer discovery & validation with enterprise accounts — running structured interviews to pressure-test and falsify assumptions before committing engineering resources.
• Cross-functional execution with engineering on scope and delivery, and with marketing on messaging discipline and campaigns that shape market perception.
• Messaging & positioning discipline — building canonical positioning artifacts and driving consistency in how the product is described across the organization, to customers, and in market.

• 8+ years in product management, including senior/principal-level ownership of technical infrastructure products, with a track record of taking products from vision to GA and revenue.
• Deep Kubernetes and cloud-native networking/security expertise — CNI, network policy, microsegmentation, L2/L3 networking concepts, eBPF, and the broader cloud-native ecosystem.
• Sharp competitive and positioning instincts — able to build canonical positioning artifacts (single-line description, problem/audience, category framing, differentiators, explicit "what it is not" boundaries) and enforce messaging consistency across the org.
• Enterprise GTM range — comfortable enabling sales, engaging senior technical buyers at large enterprises, and driving partner co-selling.
• Discovery-driven and evidence-based — you pressure-test assumptions with customer interviews and prioritize by revenue impact rather than work type.
• Crisp communicator and operator — structured, low-friction, and factually disciplined; you move quickly from insight to a decision-ready artifact.

Calico sits at the center of how modern enterprises connect and secure their infrastructure. As a Principal Product Manager, you will own strategic bets that shape the platform's direction and reframe how the market thinks about Calico — working directly with company leadership on some of Tigera's most consequential decisions.