Principal Product Manager, Public Sector

The Opportunity at Altana

The rules of global trade are being rewritten in real time.

Supply chain transparency requirements, forced labor enforcement, semiconductor export controls, tariff volatility, allied coordination on economic security — governments around the world are being asked to do something they've never been equipped to do: understand, monitor, and act on the full depth of global commerce, not just the edge of it. The manifest at the dock. The entry summary at the border. The invoice that says one thing while the supply chain says another.

The tools haven't kept pace with the mandate. Customs agencies still rely on paper-based trusted trader audits, rule-matching targeting systems that can't see the network, and data sharing infrastructure that was designed for a simpler era of trade. The result is a widening gap between what governments need to know and what they can actually see — a gap that bad actors exploit, that allies can't easily close together, and that legitimate traders pay for in delays, uncertainty, and compliance overhead.

Altana exists to close that gap.

As Principal Product Manager for Public Sector, you will own how governments harness the power of the Altana network, not just to enforce at the border, but to understand the full complexity of global supply chains, collaborate with allies, and shape the trade policy and economic security decisions that will define the next era of globalization. You've worked at the intersection of trade policy, enforcement technology, and government operations. You understand how targeting decisions get made, how government agencies operate, and why the data that governments actually need almost never arrives in the format they need it. Now you're ready to build the system that changes that.

This is one of the most consequential individual-contributor product roles at Altana. You'll set the product direction for how Altana becomes the operating infrastructure for trusted trade — the platform governments reach for when they need to know not just what crossed a border, but why it matters — and you'll do it through deep customer work, sharp product instincts, and influence across the teams you partner with.

You Will

Redefine What Governments Can See

• Own the product direction for how Altana is deployed to governments, meeting them across their varied geographies, security, and compliance boundaries.
• Shape how governments approach economic security as well as intra-agency and inter-agency collaboration on these problems.
• Drive the platform and architecture decisions that let Altana serve the needs of multiple governments.
• Partner closely with our other product areas to define and deliver our core mission sets in ways that work for public sector users.

Modernize Trade Facilitation

• Help government customers move beyond paper-based trusted trader programs to real-time, data-driven compliance monitoring that scales with global trade volumes.
• Define automated validation tools that close the "Tax Gap" — catching duty evasion, misdeclared origin, and undervaluation without slowing the flow of legitimate commerce.
• Own the integration layer: high-volume REST APIs, EDI pipelines, and configurable connections to customs management systems that make Altana feel like a native capability, not another integration project.

Power Economic Security at Scale

• Define a new product capability around economic security — giving government users the analytical tools to understand supply chain concentration, map strategic dependencies, model the impact of tariff and export control policy, and coordinate with allied governments on shared risk.
• Build the "Policy Workbench" that allows trade analysts, national security staff, and senior policymakers to move from raw supply chain data to defensible, evidence-based conclusions — about a sector, a country, a company, or a critical input.
• Work across the U.S. interagency and with Altana's international government customers to ensure the platform supports the full spectrum of economic security missions — from forced labor enforcement to critical mineral mapping to allied supply chain coordination.

Sharpen Enforcement Intelligence

• Move customs agencies beyond simple rule-matching. Define AI-driven targeting products that analyze the network — identifying shell companies, obfuscated ownership, and anomalous trade routes that indicate evasion, illicit trade, or sanctions circumvention.
• Design the "Investigator Workbench" used by officers to review high-risk shipments, gather evidence, collaborate across agencies, and build cases that hold up.
• Own pre-screening logic that identifies risk before it reaches the border — so that enforcement resources are spent where they matter most.

Set Direction and Multiply Impact

• Set the product strategy and roadmap across trade facilitation, enforcement, and economic security — balancing near-term customer impact against the long-term platform bets that matter most.
• Partner closely with engineering, design, data science, and government affairs to translate policy mandates and operational realities into product capabilities that work at the scale governments require.
• Be the connective tissue between Altana's enterprise product work and its government missions — ensuring that what enterprises submit and what governments receive tells a coherent, trusted story.
• Raise the bar for how the broader product team approaches public sector problems — through the specs you write, the prototypes you build, and the way you frame the hardest problems. 

Who You Are

You understand how governments actually work. You've spent 8+ years at the intersection of trade policy, intelligence, customs enforcement, or border security technology, not as a vendor pitching into government, but as someone who understood the operational constraints, the data limitations, and the political realities from the inside. You know the difference between a manifest and an entry summary. You've seen how targeting decisions get made, and you understand why the systems that support them weren't built for what's being asked of them today.

You think in networks, not transactions. You understand that trade is inherently a network system, and that the most consequential risks (evasion, illicit finance, supply chain manipulation) hide in the connections, not the individual records. You're energized by graph-based analytics, AI-driven pattern detection, and the opportunity to give government users a view of global commerce that's never existed before.

You can hold policy and product in your head at the same time. You've translated high-level government mandates such as forced labor enforcement, export controls, trusted trader modernization, and allied coordination into concrete product features. You know how to write a requirement that an engineer can build, and how to explain a data architecture to a policymaker who has never written a line of code.

You build, you don't just describe. You define system interfaces, draft API specs, and prototype workflows before production code is written. You operate with a "show, don't tell" mindset and you hold yourself to shipping things that work in the real world.

You think in AI-first patterns. You don't bolt AI onto existing government workflows. You design workflows differently because AI exists, and you build and prototype with AI tools regularly.

You drive impact through influence. This is an individual-contributor role. You set direction and move the most important bets forward by partnering deeply across engineering, design, data science, government affairs, and your fellow PMs, earning trust through clarity and results rather than a reporting line.

You're cleared or clearable. Due to the nature of our government work, eligibility for a U.S. security clearance is required. Candidates with a prior successful Customs and Border Protection background investigation are preferred.

You're tech-enabled and obsessed with UX. You understand the plumbing (APIs, EDI, ETL/ELT, JSON) but you're equally obsessed with the user experience. You hate clunky integration projects. You believe that even the most complex government workflows can be made to feel like magic with the right product thinking.

Preferred Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in trade compliance, customs enforcement, border security technology, or economic security policy
• 8+ years of product management experience, ideally spanning complex enterprise or government systems, with meaningful time owning products end to end as an individual contributor
• Direct experience with customs agency operations, trusted trader programs, or trade facilitation modernization initiatives — in the U.S. or internationally
• Familiarity with targeting systems, risk scoring, and enforcement workflow design in a government or law enforcement context
• Working knowledge of trade data structures: entry summaries, manifests, advance ship notices, HTS classification, country-of-origin determinations
• Experience with economic security policy, export controls, supply chain mapping, or allied trade coordination is a strong plus
• Demonstrated AI/ML product experience, with shipped features tied to measurable customer value; strong prototyping skills using AI, design, or code tools to test ideas before production investment
• Prior experience with API-based integrations, data pipeline architecture, or enterprise system implementation
• Eligibility for a U.S. security clearance; existing clearance or CBP background investigation preferred

This role can be based in Brooklyn, NY, USA or Washington, D.C., USA, with hybrid work flexibility and candidates must be within commuting distance from our Williamsburg, Brooklyn office or our downtown D.C. office.

US Salary Range and Benefits

$200,000 - $255,000 USD

The salary range, to the extent specified for this role, is a good faith statement of the minimum and maximum levels of the annual based salary for the position. The base salary offered to a successful candidate will depend on a wide range of compensation factors, including, but not limited to, work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Altana's total compensation package. Altana also offers either a discretionary bonus or a variable compensation plan depending on the role. Additionally, Altana offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including:

• Flexible Time Off: Altana operates with a Flexible Time Off (FTO) policy that gives you agency over your own time off so you can maximize your work-life balance.
• Parental Leave: We offer industry leading Paid Parental Leave (PPL), providing 14 weeks of leave for non-birthing, adoptive, and foster parents and up to 26 weeks of leave for birthing parents, all paid at 100% of your base salary.
• Health Benefits: We have a full suite of medical, vision, and dental benefits with generous employer contributions, designed to give you flexibility and choice for your individual health situation. Our high deductible health plan is 100% employer paid for employees and supplemented with an employer contribution to your Health Savings Account (HSA). There is also a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) option.
• Supplemental Benefits: Altana provides life, short- and long-term disability, and AD&D insurance coverage, all at no cost to you, so you know that you and your loved ones are covered in case of an emergency.
• 401(k) Savings: Save for and invest in your future using our Guideline 401(k) retirement savings program.
• Commuter Benefits: Save money on your commute by setting aside pre-tax funds for public transit or parking!
• Wellness: Because we value mental and emotional health, every Altana employee has access to a free premium subscription to Calm, the #1 app for meditation, sleep, and mindfulness.
• Pet Insurance: Pets are family too! Keep them healthy with Wishbone insurance and/or our Total Pet vet service and telehealth discount plan.
• Employee Assistance Program: Free access to confidential personal support.
• Dependent Care FSA: You will have access to a Dependent Care FSA, which allows you to set aside pre-tax funds for childcare expenses.

The recruiter assigned to this role can share more information about the specific compensation and benefit details associated with this role during the hiring process.