The Downstream Product Manager takes responsibility for what happens to a product change after it has been approved for release. Where the upstream product function defines what we build, this role gets it into the field correctly and makes sure it is understood, adopted and used as intended - by our commercial and applications teams, our satellite offices in the United States and China, our distributors and service partners, and our clinical users worldwide.
The dividing line is release approval. Everything before it - clinical studies and evidence, requirements, roadmap, and the clinical content of labelling - sits upstream with the Clinical Product Manager. Everything from release approval onwards sits here: what goes into the field, in what order, how it is communicated, who is trained, and what the field tells us afterwards. Field actions and complaint handling remain owned by Quality, supported by this role.
Reporting to the CTO, who sets release priorities and holds the final go/no-go decision, this is a hands-on role for someone early in a downstream product career who wants ownership rather than support work. Coverage is global, across the full Mona Lisa robotic platform family and its accessories.
Key Responsibilities:
1. Commercial and Field Coordination
- Act as the single point of coordination between product development and the commercial organization - sales, applications, clinical support, marketing and customer service - on everything that reaches the field.
- Work with the commercial team to agree what goes to which customers and when, so that release sequencing reflects account priorities, clinical scheduling and customer commitments rather than engineering convenience alone.
- Coordinate with the United States and China satellite offices and with distributors and service partners, so that every region receives the same change with the same understanding, adapted to local regulatory status and market conditions.
- Brief regional teams, distributors and key accounts ahead of each release, and confirm they are ready to deploy, installer upgrade before the change goes out.
- Convene pre-release readiness reviews with R&D, Quality, Regulatory, Operations, Service and Commercial to confirm documentation, training, tooling, spares and support are in place, and maintain the release calendar and communication cadence across the organization.
- Ensure no stakeholder, internal or external, first learns of a product change from the field.
2. Field Release Management
- Build and run the field release plan for every software, firmware, hardware and accessory change - which systems and sites receive what, in what sequence, and by when.
- Draw on Operations installed-base records -configuration, software and firmware versions, accessory compatibility and outstanding upgrade obligations - to plan sequencing and prioritize sites. Operations owns and maintains this data.
- Prepare the release strategy and gating proposal- pilot sites, phased rollout, go/no-go criteria and rollback plans - and run the readiness review that supports the decision.
- Coordinate with Operations, Service and Field Engineering on upgrade scheduling, kit and spares logistics, tooling and customer downtime windows, and work with customers and distributors to secure upgrade slots and access.
- Confirm and document post-install verification and customer acceptance for each unit, so that release records are traceable and satisfy quality system requirements.
- Support Quality-led field actions - advisory notices, field safety notices, recalls and corrective actions - within stalled-base and affected-unit data, user-facing communications and field scheduling. Classification, regulatory reporting and evidence of closure sit with Quality and Regulatory Affairs.
- Track and report release performance: proportion of the installed base upgraded, cycle time from release to field completion, and failed or reverted upgrades with reasons.
3. Release Communications and Product Messaging
- Own the communication plan for every release, enhancement and fix - what is changing, why it matters, who is affected, and what each audience must do.
- Author clear, accurate release notes, change summaries and product bulletins pitched appropriately for clinical, technical and commercial readers.
- Translate engineering change records and verification outcomes into plain-language messaging that is clinically meaningful and regulatorily defensible.
- Prepare a short requirements-conformance note for each release - what was specified against what was delivered - for the Clinical Product Manager to confirm before release, and flag any discrepancy for resolution.
- Maintain the product messaging library - feature descriptions, benefit statements, FAQs and objection handling - consistent with approved labelling and cleared claims.
4. Training and Enablement
- Design and deliver training on new features and fixes for internal audiences - applications, service and field engineering, sales and marketing, customer service and technical support.
- Design and deliver external training for surgeons, urologists, nurses, radiologists and hospital technical staff, covering both first-time onboarding and change-driven re-training.
- Build and maintain the training curriculum and asset library: training decks, competency checklists, quick reference guides, e-learning modules, lab content and video walkthroughs.
- Define and track competency and certification criteria for users and for distributor and service partner personnel, and maintain training records to support quality and regulatory requirements.
- Run train-the-trainer programmes so satellite offices, distributors and regional partners can scale training independently and consistently.
- Carry out the instructional and usability review of user-facing documentation - IFUs, user manuals, service manuals, labelling -and author all training derivatives. Clinical content, indications and claims remain with Clinical Affairs and the Clinical Product Manager.
5. Field Intelligence and Product Lifecycle
- Operate the structured intake and triage channel for post-release feedback from users, distributors, service and support -usability friction, misunderstanding, workarounds and observed unmet needs.
- Partner with Quality on complaint and non-conformance trends to identify where a training, documentation or communication gap is the true root cause, and close that gap.
- Submit evidence-backed improvement requests into the product backlog and represent the field's position in prioritization reviews. Requirements definition and roadmap ownership remain upstream.
- Define and monitor post-release adoption: up take of new features, training completion, support ticket trends and time-to-competency.
- Gather field and market intelligence at exhibitions, congresses and customer site visits, and feed the implications into product and commercial planning.
- Maintain the end-of-life plan for products, configurations and accessories, and plan and communicate the transition to affected customers and partners.
Qualifications
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Biomedical Engineering, Life Sciences, Nursing, a clinical discipline, or a related field.
- 3 to 5 years of experience in downstream product management, product marketing, clinical application, clinical education or technical training, ideally within a medical device, surgical robotics, diagnostics or health technology company.
- Exposure to taking product changes into the field in a regulated environment - release planning, upgrade rollout, training rollout or launch readiness. Depth in one or two of these matters more than breadth across all.
- Demonstrated ability to work across commercial and technical teams, and across geographies and cultures, without direct authority.
- Working understanding of installed-base and field service operations - upgrade logistics, service scheduling, configuration control and release record-keeping.
- Strong teaching and presentation ability, with the confidence to hold a room of clinicians and to sit credibly in an engineering design review.
- Excellent written communication - able to make a complex technical change genuinely easy to understand without losing accuracy.
- Familiarity with medical device quality and regulatory requirements as they touch labelling, training records, software release, advisory notices and complaint handling, for example ISO 13485, ISO14971, IEC 62304, IEC 62366 usability, MDR and FDA labelling expectations.
- Comfortable with instructional design and the production of training and digital learning content.
- Detail-oriented, service-minded, hands-on, with a bias for action and a low tolerance for ambiguity reaching the field. Experience in a startup or lean, multidisciplinary setting is an advantage, and the role travels globally.
