Product Manager
Job description, salary, sourcing, 15 interview questions and a 30/60/90 plan to hire a Product Manager at a German SMB or scale-up.
Compiled by the Join team from public data and our hiring experience.
Updated
At a glance
- Median salary€65,000€55,000 – €82,000
- Time to fill50–80 days
- Experience3–7 years
How to hire a Product Manager for your SMB
Before you write the job posting, settle three questions. They determine which profile you actually need and help you avoid the common mistakes at SMBs and scale-ups.
Question 1: Product Manager, Product Owner or Project Manager? The PM defines the product strategy, does discovery, prioritizes and decides trade-offs. The PO executes the backlog within a set frame. The Project Manager steers a time-bound project with a defined scope. Many SMBs mix PM and PO in a single ad, which produces two classic outcomes: either you pay 80 k€ for a profile that spends 60 % of the time organizing sprints (frustration), or you pay 55 k€ for a profile expected to define the product strategy without the corresponding authority (failure). Clarify the scope explicitly in the ad. If you need both functions and are an SMB, start with a PM who accepts 30-40 % PO execution; from 8-10 engineers, separate the roles.
Question 2: What phase is your product in? A PM who optimized an activation funnel on a product with established PMF works differently from someone who hunted for PMF in the early stage. Rituals, discovery cadence and market reading differ. In the early stage (under 3 M€ ARR, PMF consolidating) you want a profile at home in the chaos, who decides without complete data and puts learning speed over process cleanliness. In an established scale-up (10-50 M€ ARR, stabilized PMF) you want a profile who can optimize, industrialize and structure product rituals for a growing team. Crossing the two profiles leads to failure or frustration within 6-12 months.
Question 3: What technical depth do you expect? For a technical B2B SaaS product (API, infrastructure, devtool), a technical profile (former engineer or a tech degree) is highly recommended: the PM can assess technical trade-offs independently with the engineers, read an architecture diagram and question an effort estimate. For a B2C product or a verticalized B2B SaaS (HR, finance, retail), a non-technical profile with good product culture is enough, as long as the PM asks the right questions of the engineering team. Avoid technical profiles who want to keep coding; a PM must accept no longer coding in order to steer the product.
Indicative capacity math: a Product Manager steers 1 to 2 product teams (5-10 engineers plus 1-2 designers in total). Beyond that you hire a second PM or build a Head of Product layer. The Head of Product role becomes relevant from 3-4 PMs or 25-30 people in the product team.
JD template
Product Manager (m/w/d) at an SMB or scale-up SaaS
Mission. You define and steer the trajectory of a product or a product area: user discovery, prioritization, trade-off decisions, tracking the business impact. You work closely with a team of [X] engineers, [1-2] designers and the sales, customer success and marketing functions. You report to the [Head of Product / CPO / CEO / management].
Key responsibilities
- Run continuous user discovery: interviews, prototypes, behavioral observation, reading quantitative signals.
- Define and maintain the roadmap of the area: 1-3 strategic initiatives per quarter, aligned with the overarching product strategy.
- Prioritize incoming requests (sales, customer success, management, internal team), separate signal from noise and quantify opportunity costs.
- Write product specs: problem, target users, success metrics, explicit scope, key decisions.
- Facilitate the product cadence: weekly product (45 min), monthly roadmap review (90 min), quarterly retrospective.
- Measure the impact of delivered initiatives on business metrics (activation, retention, conversion, ARR) and adjust the trajectory.
- Represent the product to sales, customer success and marketing: internal demos, training, support on strategic accounts.
Profile
- Essential: 3 to 7 years of experience in product management or an equivalent role (lead designer with product responsibility, founding engineer with a product hat, etc.); at least one stint in B2B SaaS or a scale-up; operational command of user discovery (interviews, prototypes) and of prioritization under uncertainty.
- Desired: experience in a product phase close to your own (PMF under construction vs. established PMF); familiar with analytics tools (Mixpanel, Amplitude or equivalent); commercial confidence (comfortable in sales demos and listening in on customer success calls).
- Disqualifying: no structured discovery experience; refusal to engage in field functions (sales, customer success); a purely executing Product-Owner posture.
What we offer
- Gross annual compensation: fixed [55-82] k€ depending on experience. No structural variable component; VSOP (virtual shares) depending on the company’s phase.
- Model: [full-time, hybrid 2-3 days / week on-site, based in [city] / remote-friendly].
- Benefits: [company pension, bike leasing, virtual shares, vacation, home-office policy, professional development and conference budget, access to analytics and discovery tools].
- Stack and product tools: [to complete: roadmap (Productboard, Linear, Jira), analytics (Mixpanel, Amplitude), discovery (Dovetail, Maze), design (Figma)].
Salary band
Base salary, gross annual
- 25th percentile
- €55,000
- Median
- €65,000
- 75th percentile
- €82,000
Gross fixed salary per year for a Product Manager with 3 to 7 years of experience at a German SMB or scale-up in a SaaS context. Berlin, Munich and Hamburg pull the range up (75-95 k€ at a tech scale-up); classic Mittelstand sectors and smaller cities trend toward the lower end (50-60 k€). Variable compensation is unusual in this role; some early-stage scale-ups offer VSOP (virtual shares), which legally are not variable compensation in the narrow sense.
Sources: Stepstone Gehaltsdaten Product Manager Deutschland 2026; Stepstone Gehaltsreport 2026; kununu Gehaltscheck Product Manager; Destatis Verdiensterhebung (April 2025)
Where to source this role
LinkedIn
€800-1,200 / month (Recruiter Lite, active sourcing)The most important channel for Product Managers in Germany. The product scene is very active on LinkedIn and shares reflections, post-mortems and discovery methods there. Active sourcing via Recruiter Lite with personalized InMails that connect to a post or article by the candidate clearly beats plain Job Posts. Filter by product type (B2B SaaS vs. B2C vs. marketplace); a B2C PM will not be immediately effective in a B2B SaaS context. Expect 50-70 % of qualified applications to come through this channel when you source actively.
XING
ProJobs from €195 / monthStill relevant for classic Mittelstand sectors (mechanical engineering, industry, wholesale) and profiles outside the pure tech scene, especially in NRW, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. For pure tech scale-up profiles in Berlin or Munich, XING delivers less signal than LinkedIn today; use XING as a complement when you recruit in a sector with an established Mittelstand structure and target profiles over 35.
Produktbosse, Mind the Product, Lenny's Job Board
Variable; Lenny's Job Board around $600 per listing, the Produktbosse Slack often free for active membersNiche channels with high signal: anyone who follows Produktbosse (German-speaking product community), Mind the Product or Lenny Rachitsky's Job Board is by construction among the most engaged product people in the market. Low volume, very high quality, especially for mid-senior positions at a scale-up. Effective above all in combination with an active presence of your product team in these communities (talks, articles, shared learnings); without that visibility the plain ad fizzles out.
Evaluation playbook
The Product Manager role reveals itself across five evaluation stages. The product case study (stage 4) is the most telling stage: you can talk about frameworks for 2 hours without showing whether someone can really decide under uncertainty. Have the candidate work on a concrete case.
Stage 1: CV review
Look for consistency of product phase (someone with 8 years in products with established PMF will have different reflexes from someone who hunted for PMF in the early stage), team size (a typical scale-up context vs. a corporate), product type (B2B SaaS vs. B2C vs. an internal tool). Negative signal: a cluster of 12-18 month PM stints (a churn or repeated-mismatch signal), an unclear Product Owner title without a description of the real scope. Positive: anyone who lived through a pivot or the sunset of a product brings learning no framework delivers.
Stage 2: Phone screen (30 min)
Three questions only: (1) Describe the product or feature you are proudest of, and your exact contribution. (2) What product decision have you made recently that you still doubt? (humility and hindsight). (3) Why a change now? Outcome: go/no-go in a 5-minute debrief. Avoid framework questions at this point; look for the unfiltered product thinking.
Stage 3: Structured interview (90 min)
Work through the 15 questions below, alternating behavioral, situational, case, technical and values. On the case question (product math and prioritization), ask the candidate to compute on a whiteboard or on paper. At least 2 interviewers, ideally an experienced PM and a product or technical lead; independent scoring before the debrief.
Stage 4: Product case study (90-120 min)
A concrete case from your product or an adjacent one: here is a usage problem or a business signal; how do you frame, prioritize and decide for the next 4 weeks? The candidate gets the brief 48 hours ahead, prepares a short document (3-5 pages) and presents in 30 min, followed by 60 min of Q&A with PMs and engineers. Weighted heavily in the final decision; this is where decision-making under uncertainty shows.
Stage 5: References (structured check)
Call 2 references: a former manager (Head of Product, CPO, CEO) and a former engineering or design colleague who worked closely with the candidate. Ask both the same 4 questions: What is she/he strongest at? Which complementary profile would you hire next? Would you hire them again tomorrow, why or why not? A concrete example of a difficult decision under uncertainty? Question 4 delivers the most signal, question 2 the blind spots.
Structured interview questions
BehavioralDecision-making under uncertainty Describe the last time you killed a feature or a project the team had already invested in. What happened, and how did you decide?
What a strong answer surfacesAbility to decide against sunk cost. The decision method: which signals triggered the reassessment (usage, feedback, metrics), alignment with stakeholders, communication to the team. Bonus: the candidate names the gap between signal and decision (good PMs decide fast; hesitant ones let sunk cost keep growing). Candidates who cannot name a stopped project usually steered pure delivery, not product.
BehavioralCoachability and learning Tell me about a time you overturned your own strong product intuition. What changed your mind?
What a strong answer surfacesOpenness to data and contrary feedback. Bonus: the candidate names the concrete source of the rethink (a user interview, a metric, a failed A/B test) and the gap between signal and decision. Candidates who portray their intuitions as always confirmed show a critical coachability weakness.
BehavioralCross-functional communication Describe a major conflict with an engineer or designer over a product decision. How did you resolve it?
What a strong answer surfacesA partnership posture instead of pulling rank: willingness to hear the technical or design view before deciding; proposing a compromise or an experiment; acknowledging when the other side was right. Candidates who describe engineers or designers as not understanding the business show a weakness in cross-functional teamwork that slows speed down.
SituationalPrioritization and trade-off The managing director asks you to prioritize a feature for a large customer threatening to cancel. The roadmap is already full. How do you react within 48 hours?
What a strong answer surfacesFraming before execution: (1) decode the request (problem vs. proposed solution), (2) quantify the impact (ARR at risk, alternatives for the customer, signal about the segment), (3) assess the opportunity cost against the current roadmap, (4) present 2-3 quantified options with a recommendation to management. Anyone who flatly accepts or refuses without framing shows a weakness in executive trade-offs.
SituationalMetrics and investigation Your activation metrics drop 15 % within a week without a product release going out. What do you do within 24 hours?
What a strong answer surfacesA structured investigation: (1) check the instrumentation and data quality (a common cause), (2) segment (new vs. existing cohort, by device, by source), (3) prioritized hypotheses (a marketing change, a third-party outage, seasonality, a silent bug). Anyone who jumps straight to we build a fix without diagnosing shows action bias without insight.
SituationalCross-functional communication Your sales team asks you in the same quarter for tailored features for 5 different prospects. How do you frame it?
What a strong answer surfacesRecognizing the roadmap-by-sales trap: each request is justifiable on its own but cumulatively destroys product coherence. Expected method: identify the common need behind the 5 requests, separate ICP from special case, propose 1-2 features that cover 60-70 % of the cases instead of 5 individual features. Bonus: establishing a regular sales-feedback ritual to avoid reactive urgency.
CasePrioritization and trade-off Our product has a 7-day activation rate of 35 %. The team estimates 50 % is reachable. How do you frame and prioritize the measures for the next 3 months?
What a strong answer surfacesA structured approach: (1) sharpen the activation definition (step A, B or C?), (2) instrument the current funnel to find the costliest drop-off points, (3) list 5-10 lever hypotheses (onboarding, signup friction, perceived value), (4) estimate impact times effort per hypothesis, (5) sequence into 2-4 week sprints with effect measurement between sprints. Anyone who jumps to solutions (we build a tutorial) without framing the funnel shows a methodology weakness.
CaseUser discovery Discovery: we are considering opening our B2B SaaS product to a new segment (e.g. SMBs instead of corporates). How do you frame the discovery phase over 6-8 weeks?
What a strong answer surfacesA discovery method: (1) explicit hypotheses to validate (problem, fit, willingness to pay, channel), (2) 10-15 ICP interviews in 2-3 weeks, (3) a prototype or Wizard-of-Oz where it makes sense to test the perceived value, (4) measure quantitative signals in parallel (inbound volume, conversion on a test landing page). Bonus: the candidate names explicit kill criteria (when do we say no?). Anyone who only talks about surveys or focus groups has not done serious discovery.
CaseMetrics and investigation Product math: our product has 1,000 monthly active users, a churn rate of 8 % per month and an average MRR per user of 50 €. If we want to reach 500 k€ ARR in 12 months, what monthly acquisition is needed? Explain your reasoning.
What a strong answer surfacesAbility to do product math (LTV, CAC, net growth) without a spreadsheet. Expected answer: a target ARR of 500 k€ equals a target MRR of 41.7 k€, so a base of 833 active users at 12 months. With 8 % churn per month it takes about 130-150 new customers per month to maintain and grow. Bonus: the candidate questions assumptions (does churn stay stable? does MRR per head stay stable? seasonality?). Anyone who cannot walk through this calculation out loud does not steer a product autonomously in practice.
TechnicalMetrics and investigation Which metrics do you look at daily, weekly, monthly? Why this cadence?
What a strong answer surfacesA healthy cadence: functional health daily (volume, errors, latency if critical), engagement and activation weekly, retention and MRR monthly. Distinction between leading indicators (activation, engagement) and lagging indicators (retention, ARR). Candidates who reel off 20 metrics or only look at monthly MRR miss the operational steering level where you can adjust within the running quarter.
TechnicalProduct judgment How do you structure a product spec? How many pages, which sections, who reads it?
What a strong answer surfacesA typical structure adapted to the team: problem, target users, success metrics, explicit scope (in/out), key decisions with rationale, open questions. Bonus: the candidate adapts the length to the complexity (a 12-page spec for a toggle is over-engineering). Anyone who describes 30-page specs with detailed wireframes shows a Product-Owner-executor posture instead of a PM-arbiter posture.
TechnicalUser discovery Describe your last user interview. How many minutes, which open questions, what did you learn?
What a strong answer surfacesAn open interview method: questions that seek past behavior instead of future opinion (Describe the last time you... instead of Would you accept...), avoiding leading questions (Wouldn't it be helpful if...), notes or a recording to review later. Bonus: the candidate names an insight that changed the product direction. Anyone who has not done an interview in the last 4 weeks is disconnected from users.
ValuesCoachability and learning Describe the Product Manager you learned the most from. What made their quality, and what was harder in the collaboration?
What a strong answer surfacesReflective maturity about the profession. Being able to name a strength AND a weakness shows someone who can observe their own patterns. Candidates who only praise or only criticize their former PM are rarely good PMs themselves.
ValuesProduct judgment What is your reading of the Product Manager profession in 2026? What has changed in your view in the last few years?
What a strong answer surfacesRecognition of the shifts: the rise of generative AI in products and internal workflows, framework fatigue (you have to RICE plus ICE plus MoSCoW), a return to discovery fundamentals (Teresa Torres, Marty Cagan), growing pressure on business impact instead of feature delivery. Candidates who answer only with frameworks or buzzwords show a shallow posture; anyone who speaks of the tension between business and users, of uncertainty and empirical discipline, is up to date.
ValuesCoachability and learning Describe a piece of difficult feedback you received from an engineer, designer or manager. How did you take it, and what did you change?
What a strong answer surfacesOpenness to upward and lateral feedback: a sign of humility and coachability. The ability to name a concrete example with the resulting behavior change. Anyone who speaks in generalities or cannot name a piece of difficult feedback is rarely coachable, which is disqualifying for a PM who constantly navigates between engineering, design, sales and exec.
How to recognize a great hire
| Trait | Below bar | On bar | Above bar |
|---|---|---|---|
| User discovery | Runs few or no user interviews; decides on intuition, surveys or sales requests. Confuses opinion with observed behavior. | A regular interview cadence (3-5 per month). Asks open, behavior-oriented questions. Distinguishes what users say they want from what they actually do. | Continuous, structured discovery: a weekly interview ritual, prototypes or Wizard-of-Oz before building, explicit kill criteria before each larger initiative. Trains the team in discovery. |
| Decision-making under uncertainty | Defers hard decisions or delegates them implicitly (we'll see, let's discuss that again). Avoids killing projects the team has invested in. | Decides clear questions within a few days. Can frame a trade-off into 2-3 quantified options with a recommendation. Accepts revising a decision with new data. | Decides fast and explicitly, even against sunk cost. Documents important decisions with rationale for hindsight. Says I don't know, let's find out, without panicking. |
| Prioritization and trade-off | Prioritizes by intuition or by the loudest requests (sales, a large customer, management). A feature list with no impact-vs-effort structure. | An explicit prioritization framework (impact times effort or equivalent). Can defend a prioritization to management. Recognizes the opportunity cost of a decision. | Prioritization in service of an articulated product strategy (1-3 strategic initiatives per quarter). Says no explicitly to requests that are reasonable individually but cumulatively off-strategy. Holds the roadmap as a communication tool, not a contract. |
| Cross-functional communication | Communicates poorly with engineering and design: unclear briefings, implicit expectations, an authority posture. Communicates poorly with sales and exec: too technical or too vague. | Can explain a product trade-off to an engineer and to a manager in different languages. Facilitates effective rituals (weekly product, roadmap review, quarterly retrospective). | A bridge between engineering, design, sales, customer success and exec. Simplifies, translates, negotiates. A reference in the team for cross-functional communication. Builds the trust of other functions through clarity. |
| Product judgment | Follows fashions (frameworks, tools, trends) without a critical mind. Confuses feature delivery with business impact. Cannot tell a well-made product from a poorly made one. | An up-to-date view of the product profession (continuous discovery, impact metrics instead of activity, fatigue with rigid frameworks). Distinguishes good usage experience from bad. | Product judgment fed by their own usage (tries 5-10 products a month), by reading (Marty Cagan, Teresa Torres, Lenny Rachitsky) and by reflection. Can articulate why a product wins or loses and transfers those insights to their own product. |
| Metrics and investigation | No clear metric cadence. Confuses activity (deliveries) with impact (a change in user behavior). Cannot debug a moved metric. | An established metric cadence (functional health daily, engagement weekly, retention and MRR monthly). Can segment a metric to find the source of a change. | Anticipatory steering: adjusts initiatives based on leading indicators (activation, engagement) before lagging indicators (retention, ARR) move. Commissions or builds ad-hoc analyses to validate their own hypotheses. Trains the team in reading data. |
30 / 60 / 90 day success plan
By day 30
- Weekly 1:1 with each engineer and designer in the product team; monthly 1:1 with sales, customer success and marketing
- Full read of the product documentation (recent specs, retrospectives, post-mortems) and first 5-10 user interviews shadowing or solo
- Audit of metric health: what is instrumented, what is not, who looks at what in what cadence?
- Map of the 3-5 most strategically important initiatives of the quarter, with exact status and risks
By day 60
- First independent spec or framing on a medium-sized initiative (4-8 weeks of delivery)
- Steering cadence established: weekly product, monthly roadmap review, discovery ritual (at least 10-15 interviews per month)
- First recommendation to management on a product trade-off (kill, pivot or prioritization)
- Reformulation or clarification of a key funnel metric, if the audit calls for it
By day 90
- Formal review with the product lead or management on team health and product trajectory
- Initiative plan for the next quarter in 1-3 strategic priorities with quantified expected impact
- Steering cadence held consistently for 8-10 weeks, with no external intervention
- First measurable impact on a business metric (activation, retention, conversion) traceable to a recently made product decision
Common hiring mistakes for this role
Hiring a senior PM from a corporate for an early-stage SMB
A PM with 8 years at a corporate (SAP, mature Zalando, mature Delivery Hero) learned to work in an already-set frame: roadmap defined from the top, a dedicated designer, a data analyst at hand, engineering within reach, metrics instrumented. At an early-stage SMB (under 30 people, PMF not yet stable) none of these conditions hold. The profile arrives expecting structure, struggles to decide in the chaos and loses motivation within 3-6 months. Look instead for a profile that has already lived through a PMF phase (a scale-up between Series A and Series B, or a solo PM at an SMB); it will be able to navigate uncertainty.
Confusing Product Manager and Product Owner
The Product Manager defines the product strategy, does discovery, prioritizes and decides trade-offs. The Product Owner refines the backlog, organizes sprints and supports delivery. Many SMBs mix both functions in one ad (we are looking for a PM/PO who does discovery plus backlog plus sprint planning), which leads either to frustration on the candidate side (the role is too tactical for the seniority) or to failure on the company side (the role is too strategic for the scope). If you need both, separate the roles or state explicitly that you are looking for a PM who accepts 30-40 % PO execution.
Underestimating the sales and customer success role at an SMB
At a corporate, a PM can steer purely on data and formal user research. At a B2B SMB, a significant part of discovery runs through sales calls and customer success feedback; the PM must be willing to join demos, listen in on sales calls and accompany customer success on strategic accounts. Profiles who dislike the commercial side (who see themselves as pure strategists or exclusively data-driven) fit poorly. Check the field posture explicitly in the interview.
Hiring on frameworks instead of product judgment
Many PM candidates know RICE, ICE, MoSCoW, Jobs-to-be-Done, Opportunity Solution Trees and can explain them. Mastering frameworks does not mean being able to make a difficult product decision under uncertainty. Reserve more interview time for situational and case questions (where frameworks alone do not help) than for theoretical questions. Be wary of candidates who justify every decision with a framework; they often compensate for missing judgment with formalism.
Ignoring the match of product phase and candidate profile
A PM who optimized an activation funnel on a B2C product with established PMF works differently from someone who hunted for PMF in early-stage B2B SaaS. Rituals, discovery cadence and market reading differ. Look for a profile whose previous product phase is close to yours. If your product comes out of the seed phase (under 3 M€ ARR, PMF consolidating), a profile from an established scale-up will fail; conversely a chronic early-stage profile gets bored at a consolidated SMB.
Frequently asked questions
What does a Product Manager earn at an SMB or scale-up in Germany?
The reference range for a Product Manager with 3 to 7 years of experience at an SMB or scale-up is 55-82 k€ fixed salary per year (median around 65 k€). Berlin, Munich and Hamburg pull the range up (75-95 k€ at a tech scale-up); classic Mittelstand sectors and smaller cities trend toward the lower end (50-60 k€). Variable compensation is unusual in this role; some scale-ups offer VSOP (virtual shares), which do not constitute variable compensation in the narrow sense.
What is the difference between a Product Manager, a Product Owner and a Project Manager?
The Product Manager defines the product strategy, does user discovery, prioritizes and decides trade-offs. The Product Owner executes: refines the backlog, organizes sprints, supports delivery feature by feature. The Project Manager steers a time-bound project (fixed delivery date, defined scope) with cross-team dependencies. Many SMBs mix PM and PO in one ad, which produces either frustration on the candidate side (the role is too tactical) or failure on the company side (the role is too strategic). Separate the roles or name the mix explicitly.
How long does it take to hire a Product Manager in Germany?
Expect 50 to 80 days between posting the ad and the signed contract for a mid-level role. The timeline lengthens with multi-stage selection (3 interviews plus a product case study plus references) and at year-end. Cutting below 50 days usually comes at the expense of the product case study, which markedly worsens hiring quality (it is the most telling stage for a PM).
Does a Product Manager need a technical background?
It depends on the product. For a technical B2B SaaS product (API, infrastructure, devtool), a technical background (former engineer or a tech degree) is highly recommended: the PM can assess technical trade-offs independently with the engineers. For a B2C product or a verticalized B2B SaaS (HR, finance, retail), a non-technical profile with good product culture is enough, as long as the PM can ask the right questions of the engineering team. Avoid technical profiles who want to keep coding; a PM must accept no longer coding in order to steer the product.
What legal requirements apply to Product Manager job postings in Germany?
Three central requirements: (1) a gender-neutral job title with (m/w/d) or colon spelling (§ 11 AGG), (2) the obligation of pay transparency in the ad or before the first interview (EU Pay Transparency Directive 2023/970, implementation by 7 June 2026), (3) transparency about the use of AI tools for pre-selection and guaranteed human oversight (EU AI Act, from 2 August 2026). On top of that comes the obligation to systematically record working time (BAG ruling September 2022, ECJ C-55/18), even under trust-based working time.
Should a Product Manager work on-site, hybrid or remote?
Full remote works if the product, engineering and design team itself works remote and the rituals (discovery, weekly product, roadmap review) are held consistently. At a German SMB, 2-3 days hybrid remains the standard, especially in teams under construction where physical proximity speeds up trade-offs. Fully on-site makes sense mainly when the product requires frequent interaction with a managing director or with sedentary field functions (sales, customer success).