Interested in this AI Product Manager role at Rambus?
Apply Now →About This Role
Overview
------------
Rambus, a premier chip and silicon IP provider making data faster and safer, is seeking to hire an exceptional Senior Director of Business Development, Physical AI/Automotive/Humanoid Robotics to join our Silicon IP Marketing team in San Jose, CA. In this role, you will be working with some of the brightest inventors and engineers in the world developing products that make data faster and safer.
As a Senior Director of Business Development, Physical AI/Automotive/Humanoid Robotics, you’ll own a critical part in identifying early design opportunities, shaping customer engagements before requirements harden, and working closely with Sales to enable and secure design wins. The successful candidate will combine deep market insight with strong customer and ecosystem engagement to ensure Rambus IP is architected into the world’s most advanced silicon platforms.
In this full\-time role, you’ll report directly to our VP of Marketing, SIP. Our Business Development group is dedicated to increasing the visibility, competitiveness and overall revenue of our Silicon IP products, and your contributions will be instrumental in growing mindshare of our IP products within the Physical AI/Automotive/Humanoid Robotics customer and partner base.
Rambus offers a flexible work environment, embracing a hybrid approach for most office\-based roles. Employees are encouraged to spend an average of at least three days per week onsite, allowing for two days of remote work.
Responsibilities
--------------------
Market \& Design Opportunity Identification* Proactively identify new silicon programs, architectural shifts, and early design starts across target markets.
- Engage with customers early—often pre‑RFP or pre‑architecture—to understand requirements and position Rambus IP as foundational to the design.
- Work closely with Sales and FAE teams to shape account strategies for early opportunities, and support qualification, positioning, and deal enablement to drive design wins
Market, Ecosystem \& Strategy Leadership* Continuously monitor and analyze market trends, customer investment patterns, competitive dynamics, and technology inflection points related to Physical AI/Automotive/Humanoid Robotics.
- Develop clear views on where the market is headed and how Rambus should respond from a product, ecosystem, and positioning perspective.
- Act as a trusted internal voice on market direction, customer priorities, and emerging opportunities.
Product, Corporate Development \& Go‑to‑Market Alignment* Provide market intelligence, customer insights, and competitive analysis to Product Management to inform product roadmaps and prioritization, feature differentiation and long‑term platform planning
- Support Corporate Development by identifying emerging technologies, companies, and ecosystem gaps relevant to Rambus’ long‑term strategy
- Collaborate closely with Product Marketing to shape vertical‑specific go‑to‑market strategies, messaging and solution narratives grounded in real customer demand
External Representation \& Thought Leadership* Represent Rambus in industry standards bodies, consortiums, and technical forums relevant to Physical AI/Auto/Humanoid Robotics.
- Build and maintain senior‑level relationships (within the target market verticals) with semiconductor makers, system companies, OEMs, Tier‑1 suppliers, startups, research institutions, and ecosystem partners
- Position Rambus as a thought leader and trusted partner shaping the future of intelligent silicon platforms.
Regional Engagement \& Events* Attend, Host and lead regional customer and ecosystem events, including executive briefings, workshops, and partner forums.
Qualifications
------------------
Qualifications \& Experience* 20\+ years of experience in the semiconductor industry, with exposure to Silicon IP, SoC design, OEMs, platform architecture, and/or advanced compute systems.
- Proven experience in business development, strategic marketing, ecosystem development, or corporate strategy roles.
- Strong understanding of Semiconductor technology and IP, including interface, memory, and security technologies
- Demonstrated ability to spot promising design opportunities early, influence product and go‑to‑market direction without direct authority, and operate effectively at both executive and deeply technical levels
- Experience engaging with industry standards bodies and multi‑company ecosystems.
About Rambus
Rambus is a global company that makes industry\-leading memory interface chips and Silicon IP to advance data center connectivity and solve the bottleneck between memory and processing. With over 30 years of semiconductor experience, we are a leading provider of high\-performance products and innovations that maximize the bandwidth, capacity and security for AI and other data\-intensive workloads. Our world\-class team is the foundation of our company, and our innovative spirit drives us to develop the cutting\-edge products and technologies essential for tomorrow’s systems.
Rambus offers a competitive compensation package including base salary, bonus, equity, matching 401(k), employee stock purchase plan, comprehensive medical and dental benefits, time\-off program, and gym membership.
The US salary range for this full\-time position is $195,900 to $363,900\. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level and location. The successful candidate’s starting pay will be determined based on job\-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location and market conditions.
At Rambus, we are committed to fostering a workplace where every individual is respected, supported, and empowered to succeed. We value a range of perspectives and experiences that contribute to innovation and collaboration. Our goal is to ensure that all team members have equitable access to opportunities, resources, and a sense of belonging. We believe that a culture of fairness and inclusion helps us all do our best work.
Rambus is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.
Rambus is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans during our job application procedures. If you require assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, please feel free to inform us in your application.
Rambus does not accept unsolicited resumes from headhunters, recruitment agencies or fee\-based recruitment services.
For more information about Rambus, visit rambus.com. For additional information on life at Rambus and our current openings, check out rambus.com/careers/.
\#LI\-HYBRID
\#LI\-RF1
Salary Context
This $195K-$363K range is above the 75th percentile for AI Product Manager roles in our dataset (median: $188K across 140 roles with salary data).
View full AI Product Manager salary data →Role Details
About This Role
AI Product Managers define what AI features get built and why. They translate business problems into ML-solvable tasks, work with engineering to scope model requirements, and own the metrics that determine if an AI feature is working. The role requires a rare combination of technical fluency and product instinct.
Unlike traditional product management, AI PM work involves managing uncertainty at a fundamental level. Your model might work 90% of the time. What happens the other 10%? What's the user experience when the AI is wrong? How do you measure 'good enough' for a probabilistic system? These questions don't have easy answers, and the AI PM is the person responsible for finding them.
Across the 3,708 AI roles we're tracking, AI Product Manager positions make up 5% of the market. At Rambus, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
AI Product Manager roles are growing as companies realize that shipping AI features requires different product thinking than traditional software. The best candidates combine product management experience with enough technical depth to have productive conversations with ML engineers about model capabilities and limitations.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week includes: reviewing model evaluation results with the ML team, defining success metrics for a new AI feature, conducting user research on how customers respond to AI-generated outputs, writing product requirements that include accuracy thresholds and fallback behaviors, and presenting the AI roadmap to leadership. You're the translator between technical capability and business value.
AI Product Manager roles are growing as companies realize that shipping AI features requires different product thinking than traditional software. The best candidates combine product management experience with enough technical depth to have productive conversations with ML engineers about model capabilities and limitations.
Skills in Demand for This Role
Technical fluency with ML concepts is essential, though you won't be writing models. Expect to understand training data, evaluation metrics, model limitations, and responsible AI practices. SQL and basic Python are increasingly expected. Experience with A/B testing, data analysis, and product analytics is baseline. Understanding LLM capabilities and limitations is now a core requirement.
The differentiator is AI-specific product thinking: knowing when to use ML vs. heuristics, understanding the cost of training data collection, designing graceful degradation for model failures, and building products that improve with usage data. Experience with AI safety, bias mitigation, and responsible AI deployment is increasingly important.
Strong postings describe specific AI products the PM will own, mention the ML team structure, and talk about measurement methodology. Look for companies that have already shipped AI features. Roles at companies that are 'exploring AI' often mean you'll spend a year defining the strategy before any building happens.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI Product Manager roles pay a median of $216,175 based on 270 positions with disclosed compensation. Director-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $272,150. This role's midpoint ($279K) sits 29% above the category median. Disclosed range: $195K to $363K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $217,500. Top-quartile compensation starts at $272,100. The 90th percentile reaches $325,000. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($300,000) and Research Engineer ($280,000). By seniority level: Entry: $120,000; Mid: $200,000; Senior: $230,000; Director: $272,150; VP: $250,000.
Rambus AI Hiring
Rambus has 1 open AI role right now. They're hiring across AI Product Manager. Based in San Jose, CA, US. Compensation range: $363K - $363K.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 14% (508 positions) offer remote work, while 3,180 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (1,045 roles, $220,000 median); San Francisco (810 roles, $277,088 median); Los Angeles (397 roles, $215,000 median).
Career Path
Common paths into AI Product Manager roles include Product Manager, Data Analyst, Technical Program Manager.
From here, career progression typically leads toward Director of AI Product, VP Product, Head of AI.
The most effective path is PM experience plus self-directed AI education. Take Andrew Ng's courses, build a small ML project, and learn enough Python to read model evaluation code. The goal isn't to become an ML engineer. It's to have credibility in technical conversations and to understand what's possible, what's hard, and what's a bad idea.
What to Expect in Interviews
AI interviews typically combine coding challenges (Python-focused), system design questions tailored to the role, and discussions about your experience with relevant tools and frameworks. Strong candidates demonstrate both technical depth and the ability to make pragmatic engineering tradeoffs. Prepare portfolio projects that demonstrate end-to-end capability rather than isolated skills.
When evaluating opportunities: Strong postings describe specific AI products the PM will own, mention the ML team structure, and talk about measurement methodology. Look for companies that have already shipped AI features. Roles at companies that are 'exploring AI' often mean you'll spend a year defining the strategy before any building happens.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 3,708 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 102 entry-level, 1,705 mid-level, 1,469 senior, and 432 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 14% of the market (508 positions). The remaining 3,180 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $217,500. Top-quartile compensation starts at $272,100. The 90th percentile reaches $325,000. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($300,000 median, 21 roles); Research Engineer ($280,000 median, 147 roles); AI Architect ($254,798 median, 67 roles).
AI Product Manager roles are growing as companies realize that shipping AI features requires different product thinking than traditional software. The best candidates combine product management experience with enough technical depth to have productive conversations with ML engineers about model capabilities and limitations.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 3,708 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (2,605), Data Scientist (310), AI Software Engineer (259). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (102) are outnumbered by mid-level (1,705) and senior (1,469) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 432 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 14% of all AI roles (508 positions), with 3,180 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $217,500. Top-quartile roles start at $272,100, and the 90th percentile reaches $325,000. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $300,000 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $140,000. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (1,890 postings), Aws (1,103 postings), Azure (877 postings), Rag (855 postings), Gcp (631 postings), Prompt Engineering (560 postings), Pytorch (545 postings), Claude (498 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
Get Weekly AI Career Intelligence
Salary data, skills demand, and market signals from 16,000+ AI job postings. Every Monday.