Principal, Product Manager - Canada

About Ascend

Ascend empowers entrepreneurial CPAs to reach their goals with an innovative growth model that brings their firms into the new age. Backed by private equity from people-focused Alpine Investors, Ascend is building a modern platform for regional accounting firms that enables them to stay independent while accessing the resources of a large CPA firm to help them grow. Ascend provides access to growth capital, robust talent acquisition, best-of-breed technology, a catalytic leadership system, shared back-office services, and modernized equity incentives so that firms can surmount today’s industry challenges and reach their full potential. Founded in January 2023, the company attained revenues sufficient to qualify it as a Top 100 U.S. accounting firm within six months of operations.

For more information, visit ascendtogether.com.

About Alpine Investors

Alpine Investors is a people-driven private equity firm that is committed to building great companies by working with, learning from, and developing exceptional people. Alpine prides itself on fostering cultures where people value empowerment, diversity, fairness, integrity, and intellectual honesty. Founded in 2001, Alpine specializes in investments in companies in the software and services industries. Alpine has over $15 billion in AUM and has offices in San Francisco, New York, and Salt Lake City.

For more information on the firm, visit www.alpineinvestors.com

Position Summary

Ascend is building an AI team to revolutionize the accounting industry and not just improve it. We’re leveraging Machine Learning (ML) and Large Language Models (LLMs) to build AI-powered workflows that will transform how accountants work. This is a rare ground-floor opportunity to build products from the ground up with zero tech debt, join a fast-moving team, and help redefine an entire industry.

As the Principal Product Manager, AI, reporting to the Director of Product Management, you’ll own the strategy and roadmap for your product area, focusing on accountant-facing AI solutions. You’ll work backward from customer needs, demonstrate deep customer empathy, and become an industry expert in AI-driven accounting services. You won’t just be iterating on old systems - you’ll be creating something entirely new, shaping the future of AI-powered accounting.

Ascend’s goal is to revitalize the accounting industry, and your mission is to build game-changing AI products that redefine workflows, improve cost structures, and set new industry standards. If you thrive in a fast-moving, high-impact environment, where you can ship at velocity and make bold bets, this is the opportunity you’ve been looking for. Success means delivering high-impact AI solutions quickly, iteratively, and at scale

This is a fully remote role.

Key Responsibilities

Working with the Director for Product Management, the Principal Product Manager, AI will be responsible for the following:

1. Being a strong influencer of Ascend’s AI strategy, in partnership with the rest of the AI Team.
2. Working backward from customer needs, develop and communicate your product vision to Ascend leadership and the AI team
3. Develop a 12-month prioritized roadmap in collaboration with Engineering.
4. Own the product lifecycle for your product area, from ideation to launch, ensuring continuous iteration and improvement.
5. Identify and drive large-scale transformation opportunities within your product area.
6. Develop and execute product strategies that enhance Ascend’s operating margins.
7. Align and manage dependencies between product areas to ensure a cohesive roadmap.
8. Provide clear, structured input to Engineering to ensure smooth product development.
9. Ensure Engineering priorities align with business objectives.
10. Develop strong ML/LLM hypotheses based on customer research and deep industry understanding.
11. Partner with AI Engineering to define and prioritize ML/LLM experiments.
12. Improve and iterate on product launch mechanisms while defining and tracking key metrics post-launch to drive continuous improvement.
13. Communicate outcomes clearly, adjust priorities based on results, escalate and recommend pivots when needed.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, or equivalent work experience and education; Master’s degree is a plus.
• Preference will be given to candidates with experience in ML/AI, development or technical roles, or experience in Taxation and Accounting technology.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Customer obsession and empathy: proven ability to work backward from customer needs to inform product vision and strategy, ensuring products deliver real impact and address pain points. Skilled at identifying transformation opportunities based on customer insights.
• Bias for action and results: strong track record of delivering results with urgency, quickly iterating on products, and making data-driven decisions. Experienced in owning the product lifecycle from ideation to launch, ensuring continuous improvement based on feedback and key impact metrics.
• Fail fast: embraces rapid iteration, learning from failures, and improving products continuously. Skilled in refining product launch mechanisms and tracking impact metrics to drive product improvements. Adapts quickly, adjusts priorities based on data, and recommends necessary pivots.
• Product strategy: Proven ability to influence strategy, ensuring alignment with business objectives. Proactively develops and communicates product vision, collaborating with Engineering and relevant partners to create a prioritized roadmap that delivers measurable impact.
• Effective communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to influence and maintain relationships with leadership, partner firms, and clients.
• Cross-functional collaboration: Experienced in aligning cross-functional teams (at minimum, Engineering, and Product Design) to execute cohesive strategies. Manages dependencies between product areas to ensure alignment and smooth execution.
• Technical acumen (preferred but not mandatory): Strong understanding of AI-powered solutions and partnering with AI Engineering on ML/LLM experiments. Skilled in integrating technologies to create efficient, cost-reducing solutions within accounting workflows.
• Industry knowledge (preferred but not mandatory): Deep understanding of accounting workflows and tax preparation processes. Experience with AI-powered tools in these fields is a plus. Able to communicate complex AI concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

At Ascend, we provide a fair and equal employment opportunity for all candidates regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, age, marital status, disability, or any other legally protected characteristic. Ascend hires and promotes individuals solely based on qualifications for the position to be filled and business ne