The short story
My path to product started with a screwdriver and a text editor. I spent years building and managing 50+ digital experiences in travel and hospitality — designing front-end, running web operations, and learning that the gap between what a business wants and what a user actually does is where all the real work lives. That instinct for the space between intention and experience never left. It just grew into a product career.
Ten years of product work later, I have led a five-year platform rebuild that contributed to a company acquisition, shipped critical features during a company-wide pivot, and taken products from zero to working prototype across industries I had never worked in before. The through line across all of it is the same: get close to the real problem, cut what does not matter, and ship something people actually use.
These days I build with AI as an execution partner. I use it to move faster, think more clearly, and get to the real question sooner. It does what I orchestrate it to do, and at times we get into it when I prompt "be brutally honest" — but for the most part we get along well. I write here from time to time about my own AI workflow from a PM's perspective, ongoing projects, and more than a few flat-face moments I probably should have seen coming.
Highlights
A company in pivot. Two accounts saved.
Retained $200K+ ARR across two at-risk enterprise accounts during a company-wide product pivot. Shipped complex bulk-processing capabilities in 8 weeks through rigorous cross-functional collaboration.
Three weeks to one. Intake rebuilt from scratch.
Replaced a fragmented email-and-Jira intake system with a centralized pipeline and voting-based triage model. Reduced feature triage time from three weeks to one week while managing an extensive backlog.
Seven years. One platform rebuilt from the ground up.
Led a five-year legacy-to-SaaS transformation of a multitenant visitor management product that cut onboarding from weeks to hours, eliminated an estimated 80% of technical debt, and directly supported the company's acquisition by Building Intelligence.
One summer inside a booking funnel with a lot of drop-off.
Partnered with Disney's analytics team to identify drop-off points across DisneyWeddings.com, translating findings into prioritized Jira tickets for a distributed team, while managing the product backlog for ESPN.com, DisneyInstitute.com, and DisneyYouth.com.
Where product instincts were sharpened.
Directed product strategy for a financial trading education platform. Boosted first-month retention from 12% to 35% and increased total memberships by 15% by redesigning the onboarding experience and building a data-driven tiered pricing model.
Where I crossed from building websites to building products.
Transformed print products into new digital hospitality products. Built a portfolio of three digital martech products from concept to launch and led a cross-functional team of developers, designers, and support personnel.
Where it started, with code and a lot of conversion opportunities.
Owned digital product portfolios across hospitality and travel platforms, from Westgate's 27 resort properties (booking flows, campaigns, and landing pages tied to $24M in timeshare pipeline) to LastMinuteTravel.com's end-to-end cruise booking funnel. Led cross-functional teams across 50+ properties reaching 15M+ users, driving a 71% conversion lift.
Personal Projects
J.OS
A self-hosted AI system that manages email, calendar, tasks, and daily intelligence briefs using Claude, N8N, and Obsidian.
Shops of Winter Garden
An AI-native business directory and local commerce platform for Winter Garden, FL.
Distl·IQ
An AI-powered intelligence layer that transforms customer signal into evidence-backed prioritization recommendations for B2B SaaS PMs.
Recommendations
"Jose is a successful product leader, strategic thinker and great communicator. I've worked on several projects where Jose led MVP launches for B2B SaaS. He has a great ability to understand the customer and end-users, transform this into a vision, and communicate it to teams. Jose understands working across geo-distributed teams, and can communicate with all levels, from the engineer, SEO/marketing team, sales and the C-Levels, all while being that hub in the middle. He's also very process oriented, and can smooth cross-team processes or outright fix issues within the company. I've personally learned so much from working with Jose over the years."
Nick Circelli ↗"Working with Jose, my team was able to get a clear picture of the future efforts that the team would be involved in. This directly impacted the team by giving them greater visibility into the future road map than had even been presented before. It was always a pleasure to work with him."
Clinton Giles ↗"I had the opportunity and privilege to work with Jose at Market Traders Institute. Jose brings a strong skill set that bridges marketing and technology. His mindset is strategic in nature and he is able to develop and effectively communicate his vision and lay out a road map to get there. I believe he would be a great asset on any team and welcome the chance to work with him again in the future."
Joseph Kiefer ↗"Jose joined my business in the capacity of the Business Development Manager for Travel Media Web Services. Jose was extremely instrumental from concept to completion of helping identify and deliver a digital product suite to add to our product portfolio. He has a very strong strategic mindset and really understands how to incorporate design and emotions on all levels. The creative side of Jose is extremely strong and has been a mentor for others who have joined our business over the years."
Mark Novak ↗"Jose has a strong understanding of IT development with a solid foundation in design and UI/UX. His excellent organizational and leadership abilities have allowed him to manage multiple products across various divisions effectively. Through Jose's vision and leadership, his department created a separate product line that has helped to entrench Travel Media Group in the marketing value chain for hotels across the United States. Jose is a strong and creative leader with the ability to execute and inspire."
Patrick O'Brien ↗"I had the pleasure of reporting directly to Jose for 3 years and after working with him, I greatly admire his leadership skills. Jose challenged me while never giving me more than I can handle and was an excellent mentor during his entire tenure. He has a unique ability to drive employees to output their greatest work. Jose is also a very talented graphic designer, business development manager, business analyst and someone who is just fun to be around. His laughter and jokes are contagious and he naturally draws great talent because of his leadership style."
Joey Schuster ↗I am a Product Manager with 10+ years leading digital experiences across enterprise SaaS, hospitality, travel and other industries; with a sharp focus on AI-assisted product development, UX-first thinking, and cross-functional delivery. I bring equal parts strategic clarity and hands-on execution, and I'm genuinely energized by building products that make systems feel effortless for the people using them. If you're looking for a PM who can move fast, ask the right questions, and bridge the gap between business goals and user needs. I'd love to connect.