Senior Product Manager

Team: product

Location: Valka.ai

Commitment: Freelance Contract

Workplace Type: hybrid

The Role

We're looking for a Senior Product Manager who can own a product end-to-end - sitting at the seam between cutting-edge research and a shippable, reliable product that runs live in front of audiences.

You'll work closely with research scientists and engineers, translating new model breakthroughs into features people can actually use, and deciding what's worth building next. You'll drive a couple of products at once, keep stakeholders and investors aligned, and stay close enough to the operational reality that you know when a live stream is healthy and when it isn't. This is a hands-on role in a fast-moving, often ambiguous environment - you'll define the process as much as you follow it.

The Product

Two of Valka's most ambitious live products, both powered by our real-time avatar stack. Live Dealer brings the casino floor to life - an AI-generated dealer who deals the cards, runs the table, and trades banter with players in real time. Avatar Leagues ("Bots") drop our avatars in as the stars of bot-played football video games - full leagues running around the clock for fans to watch and bet on. These are not just prototypes, but live products, in front of real audiences, and yours to shape.

What You'll Do

• Translate research into product. Drive discovery with lead researchers and engineering, shape open research questions and new model capabilities into concrete specs, and steer research toward what the products actually need.
• Own the roadmap across multiple products. Keep a clear, shared picture of what's being worked on and what's coming next across live products and PoCs, make the prioritization calls, and keep everyone aligned and in the know.
• Run the operating cadence. Drive standups, plannings, research discovery, and stakeholder reviews - pulling decisions and clarity out of technical teams.
• Define what "good" means. Partner closely with the research teams to give them a clear product and user perspective on what the models need to do well - guiding direction and priorities.
• Stay close to live operations. Understand the streaming pipeline end-to-end (ingest, broadcast, uptime, multi-platform delivery), and know how product decisions affect reliability when content is going out live.
• Manage stakeholders and comms. Prepare demos, research/product outputs, and the calls that need a decision from leadership; keep investors and partners informed.
• Validate with data and users. Use experiments and feedback to test hypotheses and steer the product.

What We're Looking For

End-to-end product ownership - you've been the single person responsible for a product from discovery through live operation, and you create structure and process where none exists yet.
Thrives in ambiguity - you set direction when the path is unclear, make good calls with incomplete information, and iterate fast.
Cross-functional leadership - you align research, engineering, and design and drive decisions without needing a formal mandate.
Research fluency and technical depth - you can hold your own in a discussion with research scientists and engineers, read a paper or benchmark and understand what it means for the roadmap, and translate it for non-technical stakeholders.
A track record to back it up - typically 5+ years in product management shipping technical or AI/ML products in fast-paced environments, though what you've owned matters more than the exact count.
Bonus points
Experience with video-based or real-time / streaming products.
Background in generative AI, model evaluation, or developer/AI platforms.
Familiarity with the iGaming, betting, or sports-betting industry (or adjacent e-sports / sports media).
Experience scaling products for international markets and across languages.