Director – Product Management-Enterprise Systems

Job Summary

We are seeking a Director of Product Management to own NetApp’s AFF portfolio and the next-generation engineered systems that will carry it forward. This is a people-leader role with end-to-end ownership of strategy, roadmap, lifecycle, competitive positioning, and business outcomes for a core part of NetApp’s Enterprise Storage business.

This Director works at the intersection of systems hardware, ONTAP data services, and go-to-market execution—partnering with engineering, supply chain, finance, product marketing, and sales. The charter covers shipping AFF systems as well as engineered systems with shared architectures.

The role combines strategic leadership with operational accountability: defining multi-generation systems strategy, leading a team of product managers, and driving new product introduction, generation transitions, and lifecycle discipline across a major revenue portfolio.

Job Responsibilities

Leadership & Team
•    Lead, develop, and coach a team of product managers responsible for AFF systems and next-generation platform programs.
•    Set team priorities, operating cadence, and delivery standards; serve as the point of accountability for the AFF franchise.
•    Represent the portfolio to senior leadership; communicate strategy, tradeoffs, and business performance clearly.

Product Strategy & Roadmap
•    Own product strategy for NetApp’s AFF systems, including how those offerings are positioned relative to one another and to the broader portfolio.
•    Define and drive next-generation strategy for engineered systems with shared architectures used across multiple product lines: where we invest, how common designs serve multiple markets, and how we transition customers and the field.
•    Develop and maintain multi-generation roadmaps with clear prioritization across performance and capacity tiers, form factors, and technology transitions.
•    Track business metrics such as adoption, mix, capacity growth, and economics, and translate them into roadmap, pricing, and go-to-market actions.

New Product Introduction & Lifecycle
•    Drive concurrent new-product programs across shipping systems and next-generation architectures, from requirements through qualification, general availability, sustaining, and end of life.
•    Ensure product requirements for engineering, operations, and planning are clear, prioritized, and aligned to launch commitments.
•    Own lifecycle discipline across the portfolio—generation transitions, configuration optimization, and sustaining strategy.

Customer, Market & Competitive
•    Synthesize requirements from enterprise customers, the field, and partners into platform priorities and design decisions.
•    Own competitive positioning for the portfolio; convert gaps into requirements and actions that improve win rates.
•    Connect platform investments to customer outcomes and business impact through clear business cases and prescriptive positioning.

Go-to-Market & Cross-Functional Execution
•    Partner with product marketing and the field on messaging, positioning guidance, and enablement so the portfolio is simple to sell and deploy.
•    Be the point of accountability across engineering, supply chain, operations, finance, marketing, and sales for the AFF systems portfolio.
•    Influence architecture and system-level decisions that span multiple product lines and generations.

Qualifications

Required
•    12+ years of product management or technical product planning experience in enterprise infrastructure, storage, or related hardware/software domains.
•    5+ years leading product managers or equivalent people-leadership of a technical product team.
•    Proven ownership of a high-revenue hardware and/or systems product line, including roadmap, new product introduction, lifecycle, and business outcomes.
•    Strong understanding of enterprise storage architectures, including all-flash systems, file and block protocols, and modern data-center infrastructure.
•    Experience partnering with engineering on next-generation system definition, including architectures shared across more than one product line.
•    Experience driving cross-functional execution across engineering, supply chain, operations, finance, and go-to-market.
•    Executive presence and the ability to represent complex platform and business tradeoffs to senior leadership.

Preferred
•    Familiarity with NetApp ONTAP or comparable unified storage platforms, and how system hardware enables performance, density, and supportability.
•    Experience with storage economics, mix across performance and capacity offerings, and platform generation transitions.
•    Experience positioning storage for AI, virtualization, mission-critical applications, and other enterprise workloads.