Senior Product Manager – Infrastructure APIs & Developer Ecosystem

Overview

Partly is building the AI infrastructure layer for the global automotive parts industry, starting with a platform that powers replacement parts workflows at scale. The company is headquartered in the UK, with product and engineering operations in Christchurch and an early presence in San Francisco. Its mission is to connect the world’s parts and help create a more sustainable future where fixing things is easier for everyone.

This role sits at the heart of that infrastructure. The Senior Product Manager for Infrastructure APIs & Developer Ecosystem will own Partly Rails as a transactional product, shape the external API program, and grow the developer ecosystem so customers and third parties can integrate with Partly confidently and at scale. The work spans core transaction flows, API governance, documentation, partner programs, and the evolution of APIs for agentic and AI-driven consumers.

Partly has grown rapidly, more than tripling the team in the last 12 months, and expects to double again over the next 12 months. The business serves both major enterprises and fast-moving startups, with integrations across hundreds of companies globally.

Location, onboarding, and relocation

This position is based in Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand and follows an onsite working model. If you are not already based in Christchurch, Partly will fly you to headquarters for a 2-week onboarding period and for 1 week each quarter for its “Season Openers.” Travel and accommodation for these visits are covered by the company. Relocation support is also available for candidates moving to Christchurch from within New Zealand or from overseas.

What you will own

• Partly Rails: the full transactional job flow from creation through estimation, procurement, reconciliation, and closure, with responsibility for reliability, scalability, and product value.
• External integration APIs: governance, versioning, lifecycle management, and the standards that define how outside systems connect to Partly.
• Developer portal and experience: documentation, tooling, sandbox access, and the path from first API call to production readiness.
• Developer ecosystem growth: identifying, enabling, and retaining integration partners and building the conditions for the network to expand.
• Agentic API evolution: adapting APIs and instrumentation for AI agents and autonomous consumers, with a focus on reliability, observability, and graceful failure.

What you will do

• Set the product vision, strategy, and roadmap for Partly’s infrastructure and developer platform.
• Own the metrics that indicate the health of the Rails transaction layer and the growth of the developer ecosystem.
• Coordinate go-to-market execution for API launches, ecosystem initiatives, and integration partnerships.
• Take clear ownership of outcomes, including successes, misses, and trade-offs.
• Maintain direct contact with integration partners and developers and use those conversations as a regular input to prioritisation.
• Separate feature requests from the real underlying needs of developers so they can ship successfully.
• Combine qualitative feedback with usage data, integration telemetry, and support signals to make product decisions.
• Build rapid prototypes for API experiences, documentation flows, and developer tools using AI-assisted methods before committing to a full specification.
• Use hands-on analysis of metrics, logs, and dashboards to validate hypotheses and guide decisions.
• Work closely with engineering leadership to balance platform capability, developer experience, and long-term technical sustainability.
• Align partner success, go-to-market, and support teams around the ecosystem strategy.
• Communicate roadmap changes and deprecation plans clearly and early so external developers can plan with confidence.
• Design APIs and observability with agentic consumption in mind from the outset.
• Define what successful agent-consumed APIs should look like in terms of reliability, context fidelity, observability, and recovery from failure.
• Set the quality bar for API design, documentation, and developer experience across the company.
• Help define what a strong external developer program should look like as the ecosystem scales.

What makes this role different

The company is operating at a point where AI-assisted development is changing the speed of product discovery and delivery. The expectation is that the best candidates will not wait on engineering capacity to test ideas, but will instead prototype, deploy, observe, and iterate quickly. The role requires someone who is comfortable working across both the developer-facing layer and the infrastructure beneath it, while shortening the gap between intent and outcome.

Requirements

• Proven background owning developer-facing API products, including design, versioning, governance, and lifecycle management.
• Practical experience building or scaling a developer ecosystem, partner program, integration network, or developer community.
• Strong understanding of developer experience as a product discipline, including onboarding, documentation, and tooling across different maturity stages.
• Ability to work credibly with engineers on API architecture and translate developer needs into business outcomes.
• At least 5 years of ownership experience in platform or infrastructure products with accountability for adoption, not just delivery.
• Hands-on comfort building quick prototypes using AI-assisted tools, LLM-assisted development, or code as the first step in validating ideas.
• Strong analytical instincts, including defining metrics, building views, reading data, and taking action without waiting for a data team.
• Experience designing APIs for agentic or LLM-based usage, beyond traditional system-to-system integrations.
• Familiarity with transactional or workflow APIs in areas such as payments, logistics, supply chain, or insurance.
• Experience operating a partner or ISV program at scale.
• Comfort treating reliability, observability, and non-functional requirements as primary product concerns.
• Founder experience or early-stage experience at a platform-first startup that scaled significantly.
• Ability to explain a time when you removed or significantly changed something you once strongly supported.

Eligibility

Applications are suited to experienced product managers who have led platform or infrastructure products, worked with developer APIs, and helped build ecosystem-led growth. Candidates who can operate fluently across product strategy, technical detail, customer input, and execution are the best fit. Experience in automotive aftermarket, collision repair, or insurance claims is helpful but not required.

Benefits and perks

• High trust, low-process culture with minimal bureaucracy and strong ownership.
• Competitive base pay plus equity for full-time employees.
• Flexible working hours with an office-first approach in cities where the company has critical mass, including Christchurch.
• Two Focus Days each week with no meetings for deep work.
• No rigid leave policing; the team is trusted to take time when needed to recharge.
• Offices in Christchurch CBD and on Auckland’s Karangahape Road with standing desks, healthy snacks, quality coffee, drinks on tap, and dedicated car parks.
• Regular learning opportunities such as Lunch n Learn sessions and fireside chats.
• Quarterly season openers and an annual global offsite for collaboration and planning.
• Monthly team lunches, celebrations, happy hours, and other team connection events.
• Parental leave support and flexible return-to-work options, including 4-day weeks for primary carers on full pay for the first 12 weeks and 10 days of full pay for secondary carers.
• Payroll giving with support for charitable donations.
• Free parking at Christchurch and Auckland offices, available 24/7.

Additional information

Partly is backed by investors including Blackbird Ventures, Square Peg, Octopus Ventures, Icehouse, Peter Beck, Akshay Kothari, and Dylan Field. The company describes its environment as one where exceptional judgement is trusted, speed matters, and teams are expected to think in systems while maintaining a strong external developer experience.