Staff Product Manager, Flink Cloud Platform

We’re not just building better tech. We’re rewriting how data moves and what the world can do with it. With Confluent, data doesn’t sit still. Our platform puts information in motion, streaming in near real-time so companies can react faster, build smarter, and deliver experiences as dynamic as the world around them. It takes a certain kind of person to join this team. Those who ask hard questions, give honest feedback, and show up for each other. No egos, no solo acts. Just smart, curious humans pushing toward something bigger, together. One Confluent. One Team. One Data Streaming Platform. About the Role: We are looking for a Staff Product Manager to own the Flink Cloud Platform product areas within Confluent Cloud. This role is critical to making our Confluent Cloud for Apache Flink the trusted choice for large enterprises with stringent security, compliance, and operational requirements. You will be the product owner for capabilities that enable enterprise adoption of Flink at scale, including encryption (BYOK, CSFLE), disaster recovery, identity and access management integrations, observability, and platform infrastructure. You'll drive the roadmap from strategy through delivery, working directly with customers, engineering, design, field teams, and cross-functional partners across Confluent. What You Will Do: • Own the Flink Cloud Platform roadmap: Define and drive the product strategy and roadmap for enterprise-grade Flink capabilities including data-at-rest encryption (BYOK), client-side field-level encryption, managed disaster recovery, access controls, and audit logging notably. • Own the Flink Cloud Platform roadmap: Drive platform-level capabilities such as Flink compute pool management, workspace catalog design, and integration with Confluent Cloud's broader infrastructure (networking, identity, encryption platforms) • Drive enterprise customer adoption: Partner closely with field teams and strategic customers (including top-tier financial services and regulated industries) to understand requirements, close product gaps, and accelerate enterprise Flink adoption • Write product specifications: Author clear, precise PRD documents that translate complex customer and business requirements into well-scoped engineering deliverables • Collaborate cross-functionally: Work across security, identity, networking, and storage teams to ensure Flink integrates seamlessly with Confluent Cloud's enterprise capabilities. • Influence product strategy: Contribute to the overall Confluent Cloud Flink and DSP product strategy, identifying external market trends, competitive dynamics, and new opportunities • Measure success: Define and track key metrics for enterprise Flink adoption, working with data and analytics to inform prioritization decisions • Educate and enable: Partner with PMM, docs, and field enablement to ensure Confluent's sales and customer success teams can effectively position and support Flink enterprise capabilities What You Will Bring: • 8+ years of product management experience, with significant experience in cloud infrastructure, data platforms, or distributed systems • Deep understanding of enterprise security and compliance requirements, including encryption, key management (BYOK/CMK), • Experience with stream processing or real-time data systems — familiarity with Apache Flink, Apache Kafka, or similar technologies is strongly preferred • Strong technical acumen, ability to engage deeply with engineering on system design, understand distributed systems trade-offs, and write precise technical specifications • Track record of shipping enterprise-grade cloud products in partnership with engineering teams, ideally in a fully managed / SaaS environment • Excellent cross-functional collaboration skills, demonstrated ability to align and drive outcomes across multiple engineering teams, security, field, and go-to-market functions • Customer empathy and field engagement experience, comfortable engaging directly with enterprise customers, understanding their technical and business needs, and translating feedback into product direction • Strong written and verbal communication — ability to author compelling strategy documents, PRDs, and presentations for technical and non-technical audiences • Data-driven decision making, uses quantitative metrics and analytics to prioritize, measure success, and build consensus What Gives You an Edge: • Experience with cloud service providers (AWS, GCP, Azure) and their security/encryption ecosystems • Familiarity with Apache Flink internals (state management, checkpointing, SQL, etc.) • Experience in regulated industries (financial services, healthcare, government) • Background in open-source communities or developer platforms • Experience with pricing and packaging for cloud-native products Ready to build what's next? Let’s get in motion. Come As You Are Belonging isn’t a perk here. It’s the baseline. We work across time zones and backgrounds, knowing the best ideas come from different perspectives. And we make space for everyone to lead, grow, and challenge what’s possible. We’re proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. Employment decisions are based on job-related criteria, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other classification protected by law. Privacy Statement Confluent is an IBM subsidiary which has been acquired by IBM and will be integrated into the IBM organization. By proceeding with this application, you understand that Confluent will share your personal information with other IBM affiliates involved in your recruitment process, wherever these are located. 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