Pantheion AI

Product Manager — The Forge (Open-Weight Platform)

Abu Dhabi, UAEFull-TimeOn-sitePosted Apr 6, 2026

Developer PlatformsOpen-weight LLMsCommercial ModelingGCC Startup Ecosystem

Role overview

The Forge is Pantheion AI's open-weight model programme — a developer ecosystem play that gives GCC startups access to Sovereign Weights: the ability to pull Pantheion model weights and run them in their own private cloud infrastructure. This is Pantheion's answer to Llama and Mistral, but with sovereign Arabic capabilities and GCC cultural alignment baked in. As PM for The Forge, you will own the product strategy, developer experience, and commercial model for Pantheion AI's startup and developer ecosystem — the engine that builds the Arabic AI flywheel across the region.

What you will do

Define and execute the product roadmap for The Forge — Pantheion AI's open-weight model release programme, including model sizing strategy, release cadence, licensing terms, and Sovereign Weights access tiers
Own the end-to-end developer experience for startups accessing Pantheion Sovereign Weights: model download infrastructure, private cloud deployment tooling, fine-tuning documentation, and developer support systems
Design the commercial and access model for The Forge: determine which model variants are fully open, which are gated behind Sovereign Weights licensing, and how the revenue-sharing programme with developer ecosystem partners operates
Build and manage Pantheion AI's Arabic Developer Platform as the distribution layer for The Forge — SDKs, APIs, fine-tuning tools, model marketplace, and the startup ecosystem programme
Conduct deep discovery with GCC startup founders, CTOs, and AI developers to understand their specific Arabic language model requirements and private cloud deployment constraints
Design and run The Forge's startup partner programme: identifying high-potential GCC AI startups, onboarding them to Sovereign Weights, and supporting them to build commercially viable Arabic AI products
Define model evaluation standards and documentation requirements for each Forge release — ensuring startups have the benchmark data, safety cards, and deployment guides needed to integrate responsibly
Track competitive open-weight model landscape (Llama, Mistral, Qwen, Jais) and define Pantheion's differentiation strategy for The Forge

Skills profile

Required skills

Developer PlatformsOpen-weight LLMsCommercial ModelingGCC Startup Ecosystem

Required qualifications

Domain knowledge

5+ years of product management experience, with demonstrated success building developer platforms, open-source product ecosystems, or API-first products
Deep understanding of the open-weight LLM ecosystem — familiar with Llama, Mistral, HuggingFace model hub, and developer adoption patterns
Strong technical fluency: able to engage with engineers on model weight formats, fine-tuning pipelines, inference server configuration, and private cloud deployment architectures
Track record building and growing developer communities — understanding what makes developers choose and stick with a platform
Arabic and English fluency; strong familiarity with the GCC startup ecosystem
Experience designing commercial models for open-source or open-weight products (freemium, licensing tiers, enterprise uplift)

Preferred qualifications

Bonus domain experience

Prior experience at an AI lab, developer platform company, or open-source AI ecosystem (HuggingFace, Ollama, Together AI, or equivalent)
Understanding of Arabic NLP challenges and how they affect fine-tuning and private deployment use cases
Network within the GCC startup, VC, and AI developer community (UAE, Saudi, Qatar)
Experience designing and operating startup accelerator or partner programme ecosystems
Familiarity with model licensing frameworks (Apache 2.0, Llama Community License, bespoke sovereign licensing)