# Founding Product Manager (Vals Smith) at Vals AI

- Company: Vals AI
- What the company does: Private, domain-specific benchmarks in legal, tax, and finance. Backed by a16z and Pear VC.
- Company website: https://www.vals.ai
- Type: Startups (AI role)
- Level: Senior
- Location: San Francisco
- Work setup: On-site
- Pay: $150K to $200K base salary per year (USD)
- Posted: 2026-09-04
- Apply by: 2026-10-19
- Apply: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/vals-ai/e5088c0f-5490-4c3c-b9d6-befd8fd0655c
- Page: https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/vals-ai-founding-product-manager-vals-smith/

## About the role

We’re looking for a founding product manager (PM) hire to drive the next phase of company growth through Vals Smith, our enterprise product that tells customers which model is best for their use case.

## What they're looking for

- 2+ years in a technical, customer-facing role: forward-deployed engineer, solutions engineer, technical PM, ML engineer who's owned customer engagements, or similar
- A technical degree (CS, EE, math) and prior IC engineering experience. You won't be the one shipping our core platform, but you'll write code to scope evals, run experiments with customer data, and build prototypes
- Demonstrated ability to lead a technical engagement end-to-end — from first conversation with a customer's CTO or Head of AI, to scoped statement of work, to delivered eval
- Strong written and verbal communication. You'll be in the room with senior buyers and you need to be credible in 30 seconds
- Ability to work in-person, in San Francisco. We will support your relocation as needed
- Learning velocity: The role encompasses a wide variety of tasks. Rather than expecting you to be an expert on Day 1, we are looking for someone who can learn new skills and technologies quickly

Tags: Vals Smith