Product Lead, New Ventures

Location(s): US (remote), Boston (hybrid), or New York (hybrid) - EST preferred


Toast builds technology that helps food and beverage businesses run smoother, serve customers better, and grow with confidence. Our platform brings together the tools teams need to power daily operations—while turning complexity into clear, actionable insights. We're purpose-built for the pace of hospitality, and we're investing in new experiences that make great businesses easier to run at any scale.

About this role (Responsibilities) 

We're looking for a Product Lead to join our New Ventures team and help grow one of Toast's newest products. We've shipped an MVP and have early customers. Now we need to reach product-market fit and then scale. This is a senior individual contributor role. You'll work directly with a small team of engineers and a design engineer.

You spend a lot of time with customers: on calls, in person, and watching how they use the product. You're good at taking complex problems and making them simple. You have a strong sense for the next right thing to build, and you keep scope tight so the team ships what matters most. You think in workflows and systems, not just individual features. You collaborate well with engineers, weighing tradeoffs and making calls together. You know when to keep testing and when it's time to invest in scale. You use AI tools every day to prototype, research, analyze data, and check your own thinking.

In this role, you will:

• Help shape the product's strategy and roadmap as we move from MVP to product-market fit and scale.
• Own outcome briefs (our lightweight version of a PRD) end to end. That means framing the problem, working with the team through shipping, and measuring results.
• Run weekly cycle planning. You'll partner with the engineers, the design engineer, and the team lead to decide what we'll build each week and why.
• Learn where early customers get value and where they get stuck, and use that to decide what to double down on and what to drop.
• Define what success looks like, make sure it's measured, and use the data to change course when needed.
• Keep quality high where it counts, and know where good enough is fine.
• When the product is ready to scale, invest in what growth needs: onboarding, reliability, self-serve, and integrations.
• Work with sales, marketing, support, and operations on positioning, pricing, and launches, and bring what they hear back to the team.
• Share clear updates with engineers, leadership, and partners on what we're learning and what's next.

Do you have the right ingredients? (Requirements)

• 5+ years of product management experience, including owning a product or major product area and its results.
• You've taken an early product from MVP to product-market fit and meaningful growth.
• You can point to product decisions that came directly from time spent with customers.
• You've made complex workflows simple for the people using them.
• You understand how software gets built well enough to weigh tradeoffs with engineers, spot risks, and ask the right questions.
• You've worked directly with engineering teams without a dedicated engineering manager, and you've owned planning and priorities week to week.
• You're comfortable with metrics. You set goals up front and let the data change your mind.
• You use AI tools regularly in your work and can explain specifically how.
• You write and speak clearly for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• You're self-directed and low ego, and you keep things moving without perfect clarity.

Special sauce (Nice to Haves)

• Experience in operationally complex industries.
• Founder or early-startup experience, or time on an internal incubation or new ventures team.
• You've built with LLMs or shipped AI-powered product experiences.
• Experience pricing and packaging a new product.
• You're comfortable pulling your own data with SQL or similar tools.
• You've coded, or you prototype in code today.
  
  

#LI-REMOTE

AI at Toast

At Toast, one of our company values is that we're hungry to build and learn. We believe learning new AI tools empowers us to build for our customers faster, more independently, and with higher quality. We provide these tools across all disciplines, from Engineering and Product to Sales and Support, and are inspired by how our Toasters are already driving real value with them. The people who thrive here are those who embrace changes that let us build more for our customers; it’s a core part of our culture.

Our Total Rewards Philosophy 
We strive to provide competitive compensation and benefits programs that help to attract, retain, and motivate the best and brightest people in our industry. Our total rewards package goes beyond great earnings potential and provides the means to a healthy lifestyle with the flexibility to meet Toasters’ changing needs. Learn more about our benefits at https://careers.toasttab.com/toast-benefits.

The base salary range for this role is listed below. The starting salary will be determined based on skills, experience, and geographic location. In addition to base salary, our total rewards components include cash compensation (overtime, bonus/commissions if eligible), equity, and benefits. You can learn more about how we align pay with local labor markets in our Geographic Pay Zone Philosophy.

How Toast Uses AI in its Hiring Process

Throughout the hiring process, our goal is to get to know you. We use AI tools to support our recruiters and interviewers with tasks like note-taking, summarization, and documentation of interviews to ensure they can be fully focused on your conversation. All hiring decisions are made by people. We ask that you complete interviews and assessments on your own, without real-time AI tools, recording, or transcription bots, unless we tell you otherwise in advance. To learn more: https://careers.toasttab.com/ai-in-hiring

Our Approach to Hybrid Working

We embrace a hybrid work model that fosters in-person collaboration while valuing individual needs. Our goal is to build a strong culture of connection as we work together to empower the hospitality community, regardless of location. Please visit the Locations page on our career site to learn more about our in-office expectations by region: https://careers.toasttab.com/locations-toast

People Are the Secret Ingredient in Our Recipe for Success

At Toast, our employees are our secret ingredient—when they thrive, we thrive. The restaurant industry brings together people with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, and we value that same breadth at Toast. We strive to build a culture grounded in authenticity, respect, and humility, where every Toaster has a real opportunity to grow, contribute, and do their best work—raising the bar in delivering exceptional experiences for our customers and each other.

Apply today!

Toast is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive hiring process. As part of this commitment, we strive to provide reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities to enable them to access the hiring process. If you need an accommodation to access the job application or interview process, please contact candidateaccommodations@toasttab.com.

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