Principal Product Manager - Distributed Tracing & Observability

R0000564 - Principal Product Manager

We are a global team of innovators and pioneers dedicated to shaping the future of observability. At New Relic, we build an intelligent platform that empowers companies to thrive in an AI-first world by giving them unparalleled insight into their complex systems. As we continue to expand our global footprint, we're looking for passionate people to join our mission. If you're ready to help the world's best companies optimize their digital applications, we invite you to explore a career with us!

Your opportunity

At New Relic, Principal Product Managers act as company-level leaders with unparalleled vision, deep strategic thinking, and an obsession with driving business outcomes through customer value. As a Principal Product Manager for Distributed Tracing, Data, you'll join a world-class team at the heart of modern observability, shaping the future of how developers understand their complex, microservice-based architectures.

In this highly-visible and strategic role, you will  be the single-threaded owner for Distributed Tracing instrumentation and onboarding, setting the long-term vision and strategy and working closely with the broader Distributed Tracing and APM teams. You will be responsible for defining how New Relic wins in this critical market, balancing the needs of our largest enterprise customers with bold, forward-looking innovations. If you are a high-agency leader who wants to solve some of the most complex challenges in software observability and make a massive impact, this role is a perfect fit for you.

What you’ll do

• Act as a true "full business owner": Set the multi-year vision and strategy for the Distributed Tracing product, identifying market-defining opportunities and marshalling the resources to capitalize on them.
• Drive industry-wide thought leadership: Represent New Relic as a subject matter expert on Distributed Tracing in customer EBCs, at industry conferences, and in strategic roadmap conversations with our largest accounts.
• Own the end-to-end product lifecycle: Guide your product from ideation through design, development, and successful go-to-market launch, ensuring it meets the highest standards of quality and user experience.
• Mentor and up-level the team: Act as a mentor for other product managers, helping to elevate the craft of product management within the organization through your example and guidance.
• Partner across the business: Collaborate closely with executive leadership, engineering, design, marketing, support, and sales teams to deliver end-to-end value and ensure cohesive GTM execution.
• Engage deeply with strategic customers: Build and maintain strong relationships with our most strategic customers and partners to deeply understand their use cases and guide your roadmap.
• Build a data-informed, business-oriented roadmap: Define and analyze product metrics to ensure your strategy meets and exceeds key business objectives.
• Communicate with executive-level clarity: Articulate your vision, strategy, and roadmap effectively to C-level executives and senior leadership, bringing clarity and driving alignment on complex, ambiguous initiatives.

This role requires

• A Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience; a background in Computer Science or a related technical field is strongly preferred.
• 12+ years of experience building and launching highly technical products as a Product Manager, with a proven track record of success in a senior or principal role.
• A fierce bias for action and proactive ownership: You are known for setting your own direction and driving mission-critical initiatives with a high degree of autonomy and strategic influence.
• Deep domain expertise in observability, cloud-native technologies, or distributed systems. You should be comfortable leading deep technical conversations with architects and principal engineers.
• A proven ability to analyze complex qualitative and quantitative data and use it to drive high-impact business and product outcomes.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with experience presenting to and influencing executive leadership.
• A deep sense of customer empathy and extensive experience shipping engaging and delightful experiences for a technical developer audience.

Bonus points if you have

• Direct experience with observability products/tools, especially in the Distributed Tracing or APM space (e.g., OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, Zipkin).
• Prior SaaS product experience with a developer persona.
• Experience with enterprise B2B products and navigating complex sales cycles.
• Familiarity with public cloud infrastructure services (AWS / Azure / GCP) and modern container orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes).

Fostering a diverse, welcoming and inclusive environment is important to us. We work hard to make everyone feel comfortable bringing their best, most authentic selves to work every day. We celebrate our talented Relics’ different backgrounds and abilities, and recognize the different paths they took to reach us – including nontraditional ones. Their experiences and perspectives inspire us to make our products and company the best they can be. We’re looking for people who feel connected to our mission and values, not just candidates who check off all the boxes. 

If you require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application or recruiting process, please reach out to resume@newrelic.com.

We believe in empowering all Relics to achieve professional and business success through a flexible workforce model. This model allows us to work in a variety of workplaces that best support our success, including fully office-based, fully remote, or hybrid.

Our hiring process

In compliance with applicable law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work and to complete employment eligibility verification. Note: Our stewardship of the data of thousands of customers means that a criminal background check is required to join New Relic.

We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records based on individual circumstances and in accordance with applicable law including, but not limited to, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.

Headhunters and recruitment agencies may not submit resumes/CVs through this website or directly to managers. New Relic does not accept unsolicited headhunter and agency resumes, and will not pay fees to any third-party agency or company that does not have a signed agreement with New Relic.

New Relic develops and distributes encryption software and technology that complies with U.S. export controls and licensing requirements. Certain New Relic roles require candidates to pass an export compliance assessment as a condition of employment in any global location. If relevant, we will provide more information later in the application process.

Candidates are evaluated based on qualifications, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, age, disability, neurodiversity, veteran or marital status, political viewpoint, or other legally protected characteristics. 

Review our Applicant Privacy Notice at https://newrelic.com/termsandconditions/applicant-privacy-policy

Experience Level

Senior Level