Driving technology always feels old. Not by a little bit. We believe vehicles can be a thousand times smarter, safer, and more connected to the world around us, and our mission is to see it happen. In 2019, we joined forces with Honda as their first startup acquisition, and now we’re expanding our vision into building the future of electric vehicles (BEV) for millions of people around the world.

Join Drivemode for an exciting startup environment and a vibrant culture that combines impactful work, competitive compensation, and excellent benefits. By becoming a part of our team, you'll contribute to a crucial mission that revolutionizes the way people engage with vehicles, addressing both business needs and the world's environmental challenges. This presents an exceptional opportunity to be at the forefront of innovation and drive Honda's success in the EV market.

As a Product Manager, you will define the vision, strategy, and early-stage direction of new product initiatives. Your focus will be on creating customer and business value, turning insights into opportunities, framing problems clearly, and shaping impactful product decisions.

This role is hands-on and exploratory. Beyond research, you will prototype ideas, test them quickly, learn fast, and iterate to find the right solutions before scaling development. You enjoy going 0→1, validating assumptions, and reducing ambiguity through tangible experiments.

What You Will Do:

• Product Strategy & Value Definition
• Define compelling value propositions grounded in insights from user research, analytics, and market signals.
• Define KPI and success metrics for each project.
• Identify and validate customer needs (interviews, usability studies, etc.).
• Conduct competitive analysis and develop competitor maps, opportunity matrices, and customer journey assets.
• Translate ambiguous challenges into crisp opportunities and structured product narratives.
• Discovery & Problem Framing
• Partner with Design Research to gather insights and synthesize them into actionable themes.
• Use analytical and qualitative inputs to size opportunities, understand adoption blockers, and prioritize user problems, balancing user insights and market signals with business goals and OKR alignment.
• Influence business goals based on the loud signals from the market.
• 0→1 Prototyping & Validation (New)
• Create low-to-medium fidelity prototypes (flows, wireframes, interaction mocks, simple functional prototypes) to explore ideas quickly.
• Run lightweight experiments to test hypotheses, validate assumptions, and refine solutions before committing engineering effort.
• Collaborate with Design and Engineering to evaluate feasibility early and iterate rapidly based on feedback.
• Drive continuous learning cycles by combining user insights, prototype feedback, and data to converge on high-confidence product decisions.

What We Are Looking For:

• 2–5 years of experience in Product Management or equivalent roles in hardware/software systems
• Proven ability to define value, synthesize research insights, map customer journeys, and translate insights into product direction.
• Not just a researcher, you are comfortable going 0→1, creating scrappy prototypes (UX flows, interaction mocks, simple functional prototypes), and validating ideas quickly through user testing or data.
• Hands-on, experimental mindset: you enjoy “trying things,” building lightweight solutions, and iterating rapidly based on feedback.
• Experience collaborating within complex engineering organizations and delivering products end-to-end.
• Structured, proactive problem solver with a track record of turning ambiguity into a clear product path.
• Strong analytical skills, comfortable with data, metrics, and experimentation to validate decisions.
• Excellent communication skills in English, with the ability to influence diverse cross-functional teams.
• High agency, ownership mindset, and empathy for customers and teammates.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with connected-vehicle, IoT, or automotive software stacks
• Working knowledge of Agile and iterative release process
• Japanese language skills
• Experience in Design or UX Research (e.g., user interviewing, usability testing, journey mapping).
• Background in startups or fast-paced environments where experimentation and rapid iteration are core to the culture.
• A valid driving license

Drivemode is proud of a very diverse team with employees coming from 5 continents as of today. Diversity in our workplace has played an important part in our success; we recognize each employee’s unique background, knowledge, experiences, ideas, and viewpoints which are all critical in developing a product that has the greatest impacts on drivers all over the world. Drivemode provides equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, religion, color, age, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity,  disability, or any other characteristics that make you unique.