WHY THIS ROLE EXISTS
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 — starting with a smart-quote agent aimed squarely at our single biggest operational bottleneck.
We're hiring a founding product and delivery leader to own this transformation. You'll partner directly with the CEO, take full ownership of the product portfolio and how it gets shipped, and build the product discipline at PakFactory from the ground up. This is not a ticket-management job. It's a build-the-machine job.
WHAT YOU'LL OWN
- The digital product portfolio — strategy, roadmap, and delivery for our customer portal, vendor portal, and website rebuild, from problem definition to shipped product.
- AI transformation — lead our highest-priority AI initiatives, including the smart-quote agent and design co-pilot, working from real operational data on where the business bleeds time.
- How we ship — you define and run how we build: sprint cadence, agile process, prioritization, coordination across internal teams and external development partners. You choose the framework that fits; you don't perform ceremony for its own sake.
- The operating rhythm — an efficient, motivated, high-trust product organization. Team energy, clear process, and sustainable pace are outcomes you're accountable for.
- Partnership with the founder — you'll be the CEO's closest thought partner on product. Expect direct access, fast decisions, and equally direct feedback.
WHO THRIVES HERE
- You've shipped real B2B or e-commerce products end-to-end — discovery, build, launch, iteration — not just managed backlogs.
- 5-8+ years across product management and delivery, with hands-on experience running agile teams. You know when Scrum helps and when it's theater.
- You're fluent in modern product development practice — discovery, prioritization frameworks, working with designers and engineers, shipping with external dev partners.
- You're genuinely curious about AI and have shipped or experimented with AI-powered features.
- You lead through competence and earn trust before authority. At PakFactory, respect and title are earned — you'll start by leading through influence, and direct reports follow as you prove the operating model.
- You're comfortable working directly with a hands-on founder in a ~30-person company where you'll wear multiple hats and decisions move fast.
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
You don't need to write production code — but you need to be technical enough to lead people who do, and to make sound build decisions with external partners.
- Fluency in the modern web stack at a decision-making level — you understand APIs, front-end vs. back-end trade-offs, databases, and cloud hosting well enough to scope work, challenge estimates, and spot over-engineering.
- Hands-on experience with agile tooling and delivery infrastructure — project trackers (Jira, Zoho Projects, or similar), roadmapping tools, and CI/CD concepts.
- Experience shipping with external development agencies or contractors — writing clear specs, reviewing deliverables, and holding vendors accountable on quality and timelines.
- Working knowledge of AI/LLM product patterns — prompting, APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, or similar), agent workflows, and where AI genuinely fits vs. where it's hype. Bonus: you've built or prototyped with no-code/low-code or AI tools yourself.
- Comfort with data — you can define metrics, read a dashboard, run basic analysis, and write requirements grounded in evidence rather than opinion.
- Excellent UX/UI taste — you hold a high bar for design craft, can articulate precisely why an interface works or doesn't, and push work from functional to genuinely great in design reviews.
WHAT YOU WON'T FIND HERE
- Layers of bureaucracy or committees. You'll get decisions in days, not quarters.
- A PM-as-note-taker culture. If your instinct is to schedule a meeting about the meeting, this isn't your place.
- A finished playbook. We're building the product function with you, not handing you one.
- Remote work for this role. This is an onsite position in Markham — the transformation happens shoulder-to-shoulder.
HOW WE HIRE
1. Intro conversation with the CEO — mutual fit, your product story, our transformation story.
2. Paid take-home exercise (optional) — we'll share a real problem: our quoting pipeline is our biggest bottleneck. You'll sketch a 90-day plan for the smart-quote agent — what you'd learn first, what you'd ship, how you'd measure it. We pay for your time because we're asking for real thinking.
3. Working session — walk us through your plan; we'll pressure-test it together like colleagues.
4. Final conversation and references.
GROWTH
This is an earn-it leadership role with a defined destination — deliver on this mandate and it grows into Head of Product, with the team and title to match.
Pay: $80,000.00-$120,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Casual dress
- Dental care
- Extended health care
- On-site parking
- Paid time off
- Vision care
Application question(s):
- What other languages do you speak other than English?
Experience:
- Product Development: 5 years (required)
- Project Management: 5 years (required)
Work Location: In person
