Senior Product Manager, Reliability & Call Quality

About the role

Tin Can is building a safer, simpler way for kids to connect - without smartphones. We're creating screen-free, delightful devices and services that let families call the people who matter most, free from the noise of today's digital world. The Tin Can doesn't work when you pick up the phone, nothing else matters because a call that drops, crackles, or won't connect breaks our promise to families. We are looking for a Senior Product Manager to own two things end to end: getting devices reliably connected, and making every call sound clear, no matter what router, room, or Wi-Fi setup we're up against. This is a technical, hands-on role where you will dig into how our devices handle mesh networks and dual-band Wi-Fi to solve connectivity, and work directly with firmware engineers on the audio path - echo, packet loss, static, volume - to solve quality. You will figure out where the real failures are happening (in the field, in the data, in a call that just doesn't sound right) and push whatever path will fix it, whether that's hardware, firmware, or a partnership with a router company. You will partner closely with engineering and the Head of Product, and you will be the person in the room who can go as deep as the problem requires.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Own reliability and call quality as a first-class problem, finding and fixing problems before they reach a family.
• Work with firmware engineers to run down issues that contribute to sound degradation and to validate fixes in real conditions.
• Flag when a fix needs to go beyond firmware, helping shape the hardware roadmap to close critical reliability gaps.
• Understand and improve how devices connect and stay online across mesh networks and dual-band Wi-Fi environments.
• Test partnerships to see if we can move the needle faster together on connectivity and call quality.
• Build instrumentation and reporting to measure quality, qualitatively and quantitatively, so we can see the full picture.
• Turn diagnosis into a clear, prioritized backlog engineering can actually execute against with precise acceptance criteria.
• Run tests yourself, using a mix of field and internal testing to get a real answer and avoid assumptions.
• Report clearly on what's improving, what isn't, and what's next so the team and stakeholders can act with confidence.
• Translate complex networking and audio issues into plans that non-engineers can understand and support.
• Prioritize reliability initiatives against product goals so that the most impactful fixes ship first.
• Collaborate cross-functionally to align on metrics, experiments, and timelines that protect the user experience.
• Maintain a living view of failure modes in the field and drive fixes from detection through rollout.
• Use data and direct observation to challenge assumptions and drive evidence-based product decisions.
• Partner with external teams to align on standards and behaviors that improve Tin Can call quality.

Requirements

• 5+ years of product management experience with connected hardware or IoT products, plus real depth in audio or telecom/VoIP quality.
• Genuine technical fluency in networking and audio; you can hold your own in a conversation about jitter, packet loss, or dual-band handoff.
• Someone comfortable digging into logs and firmware behavior to find the root cause of issues.
• Experience partnering closely with firmware or embedded engineering teams to drive fixes and validate results.
• Fluency using AI as a multiplier across diagnosis, analysis, and testing; this is how we work, not a nice-to-have.
• A clear communicator; you can translate a deep technical problem into a plan non-engineers can follow and act on.
• Hands-on and scrappy approach; you'd rather run the test or dig into the logs yourself than wait on someone else to confirm the issue.
• Low-ego and collaborative vibes; you share credit and pitch in on problems that aren't yours to keep the team moving.

Nice to have

• Background in consumer audio products or VoIP quality testing.
• Experience with mesh networking or dual-band Wi-Fi in consumer devices.
• Familiarity with router ecosystems and carrier partnerships.
• Previous work in a regulated or compliance-sensitive environment.

Practical notes

This role is full_time based in Seattle. We are a small, mission-driven team where your ideas and instincts matter from day one.