Senior Product Manager - API's

When you join Appian, you'll be part of a passionate team dedicated to accomplishing hard things, together. This position is based at our office in Chennai, India. Appian was built on a culture of in-person collaboration, which we believe is a key driver of our mission to be the best.

You will be the product manager working closely with the team whose mission is re-architecting existing subsystems into modern, API-first components. You will be responsible for the direction and roadmap of several of these components to ensure backward compatibility, reliability, high-performance operations, and extensibility.

This role requires a unique blend of technical curiosity and strategic reasoning: you aren't just managing a backlog; you are analyzing how our systems should be rebuilt to support a future of AI-driven process automation.

Responsibilities:

• System Modernization & API Definition: Partner with engineering to deconstruct existing subsystems and define modern, scalable Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). You will ensure these interfaces are robust, performant, and future-proof.
• Comparative Analysis: Evaluate current architectural patterns against industry standards. You will perform trade-off analyses (latency vs. flexibility, cost vs. speed) to determine the optimal path for modernization.
• Strategic Alignment (IMP): Use the Impact-Metrics-Plans framework to ensure design decisions map to Appian's goals for process automation, data fabric capabilities, or AI throughput.
• Collaborative Discovery: Work closely with stakeholders in both Chennai and the US to understand how backend changes will impact the development experience for designers using our platform.
• Backlog Excellence: Manage the release and sprint backlog through rigorous grooming, writing detailed specifications that leave no room for ambiguity.
• Specification Writing: Write detailed specifications for the team and fellow product managers to review and provide feedback on.
• Impact Analysis: Track adoption and usage of new features, applying appropriate metrics and analytics to evaluate whether they are having the desired impact.
• Ownership: Own features all the way through final documentation, go-to-market, prioritization of bugs, and usage analysis.

About You:

• Experienced: 3-5 years of experience in Product Management, ideally within a technical or platform-oriented domain.
• Technical at Heart: You have a strong technical background, understanding backend system interactions, and experience defining and documenting APIs. While you don't need to write the code, you must be able to hold your own in a deep-dive architectural discussion with senior engineers.
• Analytical Reasoning: A strong ability to perform comparative analysis between different technical solutions and communicate the "why" behind a chosen path.
• Strategic Thinker: You are a problem solver with a proven ability to prioritize, negotiate, and execute in a fast-paced environment.
• Clear Communicator: You must be able to synthesize complex technical updates into actionable insights for the broader organization.
• Strive for Resolution: You don't shy away from technical disagreements. You use data and logic to reach a resolution that serves the product, not just the consensus.
• Intensity: You take personal ownership of your subsystem's performance and adoption metrics.
• Education: BA/BS in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.

This role is based at our Chennai office in Brigade World Trade Center Chennai. Appian was built on a culture of in-person collaboration, which we believe is a key driver of our mission to be the best. Employees hired for this position are expected to be in the office 5 days a week to foster that culture and ensure we continue to thrive through shared ideas and teamwork. We believe being in the office provides more opportunities to come together and celebrate working with the exceptional people across Appian.