[Remote] Principal Product Manager, Voice AI

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Toast creates technology to help restaurants and local businesses succeed in a digital world. They are seeking a Principal Product Manager to lead the initiative of integrating voice AI into in-store restaurant experiences, defining strategy, evaluating vendors, and overseeing the commercialization of a reusable voice platform.ResponsibilitiesDefine vision & portfolio strategy. Own the long-term vision and multi-quarter roadmap for in-store voice AI and the platform that enables multiple use cases across FOH/BOH. Balance short-term pilots with long-term platform investmentsRun vendor & technical evaluation. Lead technical evaluation of voice and AI vendors (ASR, NLU, TTS, edge inference, on-device options) and create benchmarking frameworks for accuracy, latency, privacy, and costLead commercial conversations. Drive vendor commercial discussions (pricing models, licensing, SLAs) and surface negotiation points — partnering with Procurement and Legal who finalize contracts and budget approvalsDrive zero → one discovery and pilots. Plan and execute discovery, rapid prototyping, and in-restaurant pilots; iterate based on operational feedback and scale successful experimentsDesign a reusable voice platform. Define APIs, integration patterns, data flows, and tooling that make voice capabilities reusable across guest experiences, staff workflows, and integrations with POS, kitchen systems, and telemetry servicesLead GTM & commercialization. Define pricing, packaging, and go-to-market strategy with Product Marketing, Sales, and Operations; identify commercial models that fit restaurants of different sizesCoordinate cross-functional delivery. Align Engineering, Hardware Ops, Reliability, Security, Data, Research, Design, Care/Onboarding, and GTM partners to de-risk delivery and adoptionDrive operational readiness & reliability. Define operational playbooks, observability, edge/online failover modes, and post-launch monitoring to ensure reliable in-store behavior and low support costChampion field research & validation. Spend time in restaurants to learn operational workflows, validate prototypes, and iterate with real staff and guestsMentor & shape product practice. Coach senior PMs and engineers on voice/AI product development, vendor evaluation, and responsible AI practices; contribute to the Product PlaybookEmbrace and advocate for the use of AI tools to accelerate product discovery, streamline execution, and explore new product experiences - helping shape how we build and what we buildSkillsAI product delivery experience. ~8+ years shipping complex software products with demonstrated ownership of multi-team programs or a major product portfolio, and experience delivering AI-enabled features or productsAI Model Evaluation. Hands-on experience defining and owning AI model evaluation (examples: WER/CER, intent accuracy, wake-word false accept/reject, latency, completion/task success), building continuous evaluation and model ops processes (drift detection, automated regression tests, A/B testing, rollback/mitigation playbooks), and partnering with ML teams to run experiments and error analysisZero → one experience. Proven track record taking a product from discovery through prototype and pilot to scaleVendor evaluation & commercial acumen. Hands-on experience evaluating AI/voice vendors and participating in vendor commercial conversations (note: Procurement/Legal finalize contracts)Platform mindset. Ability to design reusable APIs and platform capabilities that enable multiple downstream use cases and teamsCustomer & ops empathy. Experience conducting on-site discovery and validating prototypes in operational environments (restaurant or other physical venues)Cross-team leadership. Exemplary stakeholder management and ability to align senior partners across hardware, engineering, ops, and GTM, especially on high-visibility initiativesCommunication & influence. Clear, persuasive written and verbal communication; able to synthesize technical tradeoffs and business value for executives and partnersSpeech / voice product experience. Prior experience building voice AI products (ASR/NLU/TTS, or working directly with speech teams) is helpful but not requiredConversational UX & dialog design. Experience designing conversational flows, state management, turn-taking, error recovery and graceful degradationExposure to hardware considerations for voice (far-field audio, beamforming, noise cancellation, embedded audio processing)Experience with on-device / edge inference and hybrid cloud/edge voice architectures (model quantization, latency/footprint tradeoffs)Familiarity with privacy, compliance, and PII handling for voice data (on-device vs cloud processing, country-level regulations)Background in restaurant, retail, or other physical-world operationsExperience with ML lifecycle tooling, continuous model evaluation, and production A/B testing strategies for AI featuresBenefitsCash compensation (overtime, bonus/commissions, if eligible)BenefitsEquity (if eligible)Company OverviewToast is a point-of-sale and restaurant management platform designed for businesses in the food service and hospitality industry. It was founded in 2011, and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, with a workforce of 1001-5000 employees. Its website is https://pos.toasttab.com.Company H1B SponsorshipToast has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships, with 3 in 2026, 26 in 2025, 32 in 2024, 39 in 2023, 66 in 2022, 29 in 2021, 17 in 2020. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role.