Product Manager, Public Sector & Defence

Role Overview

We're looking for a Public Sector & Defence PM to own North's product strategy across Canadian public sector and defence accounts. This is a senior, customer‑facing role that sits at the intersection of product, compliance, and vertical strategy.

You'll be the voice of government customers inside Cohere's product organization, translating the unique requirements of public sector deployments (data sovereignty, security classifications, accessibility, multilingualism) into concrete product investments. You'll work closely with our Strategic Customer, Engineering Program Management, Sovereign AI, and Forward Deployed Engineering teams to ensure North can meet the standards that regulated government environments demand.

Location: Ottawa or Toronto preferred. Proximity to government customers is important for this role.

Responsibilities

• Own the public sector product roadmap for North, prioritizing features and compliance investments based on direct customer input, deal requirements, and the regulatory landscape.
• Translate government requirements, including data sovereignty, Protected B/C environments, Privacy Act compliance, Algorithmic Impact Assessments, accessibility standards, and official languages obligations, into actionable product requirements for internal engineering and design teams.
• Work directly with our FDEs and Applied Machine Learning Engineers to scope and build custom solutions/agents/features for public sector accounts.
• Partner with GTM and EPM teams to support RFP responses, technical evaluations, and procurement processes, ensuring Cohere's product capabilities are accurately and compellingly represented.
• Build and maintain deep customer relationships with departmental CIOs, IT directors, and technical leads, acting as a trusted advisor on AI adoption in constrained regulatory environments.
• Synthesize market and customer signals from across the public sector vertical into a coherent product strategy, including competitive positioning against other AI platforms pursuing government contracts.

Requirements

• 7+ years of product management experience, with meaningful time in enterprise SaaS, infrastructure, or platform products sold into regulated industries.
• Direct experience working with or within Canadian government, defence, or public sector organizations, whether as a vendor, contractor, or public servant.
• Strong cross‑functional collaborator who can align engineering, sales, legal, and customer teams around a shared plan without formal authority.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to present to senior government officials and translate technical concepts for non‑technical decision‑makers.
• Eligible to obtain Top Secret Canadian government security clearance.

Nice‑to‑Haves

• Active Canadian government security clearance (Secret or Top Secret). Strong preference for candidates holding active Top Secret clearance, as this enables immediate engagement with defence and national security accounts.
• Strong working knowledge of the Canadian government technology landscape: data sovereignty requirements, Treasury Board policies, security classification frameworks (Protected B/C, Secret), and procurement processes.
• Experience with GC Cloud services (Azure Government, AWS GovCloud) or Protected B/C deployment environments.
• Bilingual (English/French) proficiency.

Why Join Cohere?

• Impact: Shape how Canada's most important public institutions adopt and deploy frontier AI.
• Innovation: Work alongside leading researchers and engineers solving complex ML challenges.
• Growth: Competitive compensation, equity options, and opportunities for professional development.
• Flexibility: Hybrid work model, with Ottawa or Toronto preferred given proximity to government customers.

If some of the above doesn't line up perfectly with your experience, we still encourage you to apply!

Perks for Full‑Time Employees

• An open and inclusive culture and work environment
• Work closely with a team on the cutting edge of AI research
• Weekly lunch stipend, in‑office lunches & snacks
• 🥗 Full health and dental benefits, including a separate budget to take care of your mental health
• 100% Parental Leave top‑up for up to 6 months
• Personal enrichment benefits towards arts and culture, fitness and well‑being, quality time, and workspace improvement
• 🌍 Remote‑flexible, offices in Toronto, New York, San Francisco, London and Paris, as well as a co‑working stipend
• 6 weeks of vacation (30 working days!)