About PakFactory PakFactory has spent over a decade as a design-led custom packaging partner to North American brands across apparel, beauty, food and beverage, and beyond. We're now at a genuine inflection point: transforming from a service business into a technology-powered platform. That means rebuilding our website, launching customer and vendor portals, and shipping AI products that change how packaging gets quoted, designed, and delivered.
The Mission
We're hiring a founding Senior Product Manager (Platform & AI) to own PakFactory’s digital transformation. Partnering directly with the CEO, you will bridge high-level business vision with rigorous, tech-enabled product execution. This is not a ticket-taker job or a corporate bureaucratic role - it requires startup agility, structured first-principles thinking, and a hands-on approach to shipping high impact products.
Position Details
- Job Type: Full-time, Permanent
- Work Location: On-site at our office in Markham, ON
- Target Salary Range: $80,000 – $120,000 per year
What You’ll Build & Own
Product Strategy & Business Discovery (50%)
- Own the Digital Portfolio: Drive the vision, roadmap, and requirements for our web rebuild, customer portal, and vendor portal from problem definition to shipped software.
- Lead AI Transformation: Translate real operational bottlenecks into functional AI initiatives, including our smart-quote agent and design co-pilot, driving efficiency across quoting and design workflows.
- Deep Requirement Gathering: Uncover non-obvious business and workflow requirements by working directly alongside operations, design, sales, and executive leadership.
- Roadmap & Requirement Breakdown: Translate high-level business vision into structured epics, feature specs, UX flows, and granular user stories that leave no room for developer ambiguity.
- CEO Partnership: Serve as the closest thought partner to the CEO on product strategy, bringing structured thinking, challenge, and alignment to fast-moving decisions.
Project Management & Delivery Execution (50%)
- Drive Shipping Cadence: Establish and run pragmatic, lightweight agile workflows – sprint planning, backlog grooming, clear milestone setting, and daily standups to maintain team alignment and pace.
- External Dev Vendor Management: Hold external agencies and development partners accountable for code quality, architectural standards, scope control, and on-time delivery.
- Milestone Precision & Predictability: Define accurate release milestones, remove execution blockers, and proactively manage risks before they hit delivery dates.
- Quality Assurance & Acceptance: Define rigorous acceptance criteria, lead User Acceptance Testing (UAT), and ensure bug-free, performant releases before shipping to users.
- Release & Change Management: Coordinate deployment schedules, user training, and rollout feedback loops across internal frontline teams and external customers.
Who You Are
Experience & Mindset
- 5–8+ Years in Product & Delivery: Proven track record of taking complex B2B, e-commerce, or SaaS products from discovery to end-to-end launch.
- End-to-End Product Ownership: You have personally owned at least one product or application from discovery and requirements through design, build, QA, release, and post-launch iteration, staying close to the work at every stage rather than handing off between phases.
- Startup Mindset: High ownership, comfort with ambiguity, fast iteration, and a bias toward action.
- Depth Over Surface: Ability to dive into technical nuances, business workflows, and operational edge cases rather than managing at a high level.
AI & Technical Competence
- Proven AI Fluency: Hands-on experience implementing or prototyping with LLM/AI workflows, APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.), prompt engineering, or agentic automation. You know where AI creates real leverage versus where it is hype.
- Fast Tech Assimilator: Strong technical intuition with the ability to rapidly absorb modern web architecture (APIs, front-end vs. back-end trade-offs, databases) to challenge estimates, scope work accurately, and eliminate vendor bloat
- Agile & Delivery Infrastructure: Mastery of agile management tools (Jira, Zoho Projects, linear platforms) and software lifecycle concepts.
Leadership & Communication
- Lead Through Competence: Earn respect through execution quality, critical thinking, and domain mastery rather than titles.
- Strong UI/UX Standards: High aesthetic bar for digital interfaces, ensuring products are intuitive, fast, and delightful for B2B users.
- Language Capability: Fluent English communication skills (written and verbal) are required. Working proficiency in Mandarin or Cantonese is considered a strong asset.
What You Won't Find Here
- Corporate Bureaucracy: No committees, meeting-about-a-meeting culture, or quarterly sign-off loops. Decisions happen in days.
- A Handed-Down Playbook: You are building the product function from scratch alongside leadership.
- Remote / Offsite Work: This role is 100% on-site at our Markham HQ - our digital transformation happens shoulder-to-shoulder with leadership and operations.
Benefits & Work Conditions
- Extended Health, Dental, and Vision care
- Paid time off (PTO) and statutory holiday pay
- On-site parking
- Legal Eligibility: Must be legally authorized to work in Canada.
Accessibility, Inclusion & AI Transparency
PakFactory is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. In accordance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) and the Ontario Human Rights Code, accommodations are available upon request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the recruitment and selection process. If you require accommodation, please contact HR@pakfactory.com.
