Principal Product Manager
First seen by Alion on Oct 3, 2026.
Job Description:
This position drives the overall product strategy and execution, ensuring alignment with business goals and effective communication across teams. The Principal Product Manager owns the full product lifecycle for a specific product, from ideation to market launch and continuous optimization. This role plays a pivotal part in defining the product strategy, ensuring that it aligns with the company’s long-term goals, and works closely with cross-functional teams to execute the roadmap.
Job Function & Responsibilities:Customer and Market-Driven Strategy
- Lead customer and market research efforts to inform product strategy, ensuring customer pain points and market trends drive decision-making while optimizing product profitability and return on investment.
- Influence product decisions by aligning engineering, marketing, and leadership teams, ensuring strategic cohesion across all functions. Shape internal and external messaging to ensure product initiatives align with business objectives and customer needs.
- Tackle ambiguous, large-scale problems and drive resolution with minimal oversight.
- Make high-level decisions based on data, balancing customer insights with business needs and performance metrics to guide product direction.
- Have a deep, nuanced understanding of the product and market landscape.
- Lead the full matrixed team for your product, making key decisions, guiding team efforts, and driving product direction. Mentor junior team members.
- Own the tactical execution of the product strategy for your product, ensuring alignment with company objectives. Guide and make high-level decisions that shape the product’s future.
- Provide leadership in creating cross-product innovation for a mid-term time horizon. Identify and define innovation opportunities that are not covered within a single product line.
- Ensure Vertex competitiveness by creating continuous evolution of solutions derived from a tax-centric, market-driven perspective to identify opportunities not yet covered by existing individual solutions. Leverage tax technology, tax lifecycle, and tax process know-how to identify opportunities for automation and innovation that are currently not covered.
- Identify opportunities for end-to-end solutions by integration and/or APIs between solutions and recommend harmonizing and standardizing roadmaps.
- Participate as a trusted advisor to the suite owner to assist in the definition of individual solutions and their evolution.
- Enable and advance Vertex innovation capability and speed by leveraging and exposing industry knowledge and experience.
- Interface/Team across functional areas such as Strategy and Emerging Technology to create long-term product vision and concepts.
- Participate in setting the mid-term strategic and product direction for Vertex.
- Maintain frequent contact with customers, partners, and other market participants to identify pain points and derive innovation ideas.
- Present and represent Vertex in conferences to showcase Vertex thought leadership.
- Routinely attend trade shows and maintain excellent awareness and fluency in competitor offerings, driving differentiated product offerings and enabling sales and marketing differentiation in offerings.
- Create and maintain mechanisms for receiving and tracking input on requirements from prospects, customers, internal staff, partners, trade shows, and industry analysts.
- Occasional travel required.
- Understanding of “jobs to be done” in the global transaction tax space.
- Must have excellent business acumen and knowledge of core, emerging, and competitive markets in the tax technology space.
- Ability to articulate and translate business problems into solutions in a cloud environment.
- Generally understand the impact of ecosystems and how to build solutions for and to integrate with them.
- Excellent presentation skills with the ability to make presentations to top management.
- Proven ability to work in a matrixed environment and lead by influence.
- Proven ability to stay on task, overcome obstacles, meet deadlines and milestones, and deliver work by agreed-upon dates.
- Demonstrated ability to drive results virtually with distributed global teams.
- Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Engineering, or related field preferred.
- Minimum of twelve (10) plus years of product management experience.
- Previous experience with SaaS, Cloud solutions.
- Successful track record of developing go-to marketing programs with measurable results.
COMMENTS:
The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by individuals in this position. Other functions may be assigned, and management retains the right to add or change the duties at any time.
Vertex Values: Together We Win
We're building a team of people who are passionate about making an impact for our customers and committed to how that impact is achieved. Our values define the behaviors, mindset, and culture that make Vertex a great place to grow and do meaningful work.
Play to Win or We Don't Play — If we choose to do something, we're choosing to do it because we plan to win. That mindset raises our bar on product quality, customer outcomes, and how we show up for one another.
Work As a Team, Putting the Customer At the Core — Our customers are our true north. Whatever your role, ask: how will this help a customer succeed today? We earn trust through outcomes, not promises.
Achieve Excellence With Integrity, Speed, and Agility — The market isn't slowing down. We'll move faster, adapt quickly, and never compromise on doing things the right way — for teammates, customers, and partners.
Innovate Boldly With a Growth Mindset — Progress demands smart risk. We'll try new approaches, learn fast, and keep pushing the boundaries — especially where AI can remove friction and unlock value.
Communicate with Care, Candor and Transparency — Honest, constructive conversations make us better. Let's speak plainly about what's working and what isn't and help each other improve.
Pay Transparency Statement:
US Base Salary Range: $131,600.00 - $171,100.00Base pay offered to new hires may vary based upon factors including relevant industry and job-related skills and experience, geographic location, and business needs.* The range displayed does not encompass the full potential of the role, which allows for further growth and career progression.
In addition, as a part of our total compensation package, this role may be eligible for the Vertex Bonus Plan (VOB), a role-specific sales commission/bonus, and/or equity grants.
Learn more about Life at Vertex and connect with your recruiter for more details regarding Vertex's compensation and benefit programs.
*In no case will your pay fall below applicable local minimum wage requirements.
Originally posted on Himalayas