Principal Product Manager - Director Cloudera Data Warehouse (Hive / Impala) at Cloudera

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Job Description:

At Cloudera, we empower people to transform complex data into clear and actionable insights. With as much data under management as the hyperscalers, we're the preferred data partner for the top companies in almost every industry. Powered by the relentless innovation of the open source community, Cloudera advances digital transformation for the world's largest enterprises.

Our Data Services Pillar is the heart of data innovation. We don't just work with technology; we build it. Our mission is to empower data practitioners by creating seamless, enterprise-grade experiences for data engineering, warehousing, streaming, operational databases, and AI.

Cloudera is seeking an experienced Principal Product Manager (Individual Contributor) for our mission-critical Cloudera Data Warehouse (CDW) service. In this role, you will own our cloud-native data warehouse, driving the deep technical integration of Apache Iceberg with Apache Hive and Apache Impala virtual warehouses, orchestrated via Kubernetes across public and private cloud environments.

You will lead the evolution toward a modern data lakehouse architecture, leveraging CDW's decoupled design-Control Plane, Catalogs, and Virtual Warehouses-to deliver massive scalability, workload isolation, and automated optimization for enterprise ELT/ETL workflows. This is a highly technical role requiring strong product vision, Kubernetes expertise, and a passion for simplifying complex systems for global enterprise users.

As a Principal Product Manager you will:

• Product Vision & Strategy: Articulate and own the strategic direction for our core SQL engines, Apache Hive and Apache Impala for Cloudera Dare Warehouse (CDW) service. Define the essential functions and capabilities required to serve distinct customer needs, from high-concurrency BI to complex ETL/ELT workloads.

• Roadmap Management: Develop and maintain a prioritized product roadmap aligned with product strategy. Make data-driven decisions on feature priorities, balancing customer needs, market trends, and technical debt.

• Apache Iceberg Integration: Prioritize and define the features that enable advanced data lakehouse capabilities (e.g., schema evolution, time travel) with the latest Apache Iceberg versions across both Hive and Impala engines. Ensure cross-engine compatibility and interoperability with other data services.

• Own the Kubernetes Roadmap: Direct the development of features for elasticity, cost optimization, and automated resource management across the hybrid cloud, ensuring cloud-native efficiency for the SQL engines.

• Market & Customer Insight: Conduct continuous market research to understand the competitive landscape and identify new opportunities. Serve as the primary conduit for customer feedback through direct engagements with field, customers and partners.

• Hybrid Multi-Cloud Product Definition: Define the product for a consistent experience across public clouds and private cloud/on-premises deployments, while addressing the unique requirements of each form factor.

• Go-to-Market & Enablement: Drive successful product launches by collaborating with Marketing, Sales, and Documentation teams. Create compelling messaging and enable both internal teams and customers.

• Business Ownership: Define and track KPIs for the CDW service's success, including adoption and revenue

• Requirement Authoring: Write clear, concise, and high-quality Product Requirement Documents (PRDs), create epics, and detailed user stories that define exactly what needs to be built. For a data platform, this often means writing requirements for APIs, security models, performance benchmarks, and deployment patterns (e.g., Kubernetes operators).

• Technical Partnership: Work as a close partner with Engineering to understand and negotiate technical trade-offs, architecture decisions, and implementation complexity. A Cloudera PM needs strong technical acumen to credibly discuss the underlying Apache projects (like Hive, Impala, Ranger, Kafka, Iceberg).

• UX Simplification: Collaborate with UX/Design to ensure that complex infrastructure and data management features are packaged into a simple, intuitive user experience. This means making a Kubernetes-orchestrated data service feel as simple as a few clicks for the end-user.

• Champion the Hybrid Cloud Data Lakehouse, serving as the senior product expert for CDW with customers, partners, and industry analysts.

We are excited if you have:

• Experience: 8+ years as a Product Manager, with significant hands-on experience in distributed data platforms or cloud-native data services.

• Technical Expertise: Deep, verifiable expertise in Kubernetes orchestration and the Apache Iceberg open table format

• Domain Knowledge: Expert understanding of Hive/Impala and how they are used for enterprise ELT/ETL and analytical workloads.

• Product Skills: Proven ability to write clear PRDs, build use cases/user stories, analyze customer patterns, and simplify complex technical solutions.

• Hybrid Cloud: Experience managing products deployed across both Public Cloud and on-premises Private Cloud.

You may also have:

• MBA degree and prior experience in a Director of Product Management (individual contributor) role.

Why this role matters:

This is your opportunity to build cloud-native solutions that are deployable anywhere whether in massive clusters on any cloud provider or in private data centers. You'll work with cutting-edge technologies like Trino, Spark, Airflow, and advanced AI inferencing systems to shape the future of analytics. Your code will directly influence how data engineers, analysts, and developers worldwide find value in their data.

We believe in the power of open source. You'll collaborate with project committers, contributing upstream to keep technologies like Apache Hive and Impala evolving. You'll harden these engines for rock-solid security, optimize them for peak performance, and make them effortlessly run across all environments. Join us and help build the trusted, cloud-native platform that powers insights for the most data-intensive companies on the planet.

This role is not eligible for immigrationsponsorship

What you can expect from us:

• Generous PTO Policy

• Support work life balance with Unplugged Days

• Flexible WFH Policy

• Mental & Physical Wellness programs

• Phone and Internet Reimbursement program

• Access to Continued Career Development

• Comprehensive Benefits and Competitive Packages

• Paid Volunteer Time

• Employee Resource Groups

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