Earlier this year, we published a detailed breakdown of what venture-backed companies are actually paying for product roles, not survey data, but real numbers from real placements. Since then, a few things have shifted and a few things haven’t, in ways that matter whether you’re running a product search or thinking about your own next move.
This is a mid-year update. Not a full repricing of the market, but an honest read on what’s changed in the conversations we’re having now versus the ones we were having in January.
The Fundamentals Are Still Holding
The broad salary bands we shared earlier this year have remained largely intact at most stages. Venture-backed companies at Series A and beyond are not dramatically repricing product roles downward. The correction that many expected to follow the 2022 and 2023 contraction in startup funding did compress comp at some levels, but it was not the across-the-board reset that circulated as a prediction.
Base salaries for VP of Product roles at growth-stage companies in North America are still running between $200K and $260K CAD, with significant variance depending on company stage, geography, and whether the role has a mandate that touches revenue directly. At the CPO level, the range is wider, and the equity component is carrying more of the total package weight than it was a few years ago.
The equity versus base dynamic we covered earlier this year remains the central negotiation tension in most senior searches. Candidates who have been burned by unvested equity at companies that didn’t perform are asking harder questions about strike price, preferred stack, and what dilution has looked like across previous rounds. Those conversations are no longer unusual even at the Series A stage.
The AI Premium Is Getting More Specific
In early 2026, “AI experience” was doing a lot of work as a comp lever. Candidates who could articulate any meaningful engagement with AI tools or AI-powered product development were pushing comp expectations upward, and companies were generally accepting it.
That’s changed. Not because AI fluency has become less valuable, but because the market has gotten more precise about what it’s actually willing to pay for.
Companies in the second half of 2026 are asking harder questions. They want to know specifically what AI-powered features a candidate has shipped, how they evaluated model performance in a production context, and how they’ve handled the product design challenges that are particular to AI: latency, output variability, trust calibration with end users. These aren’t abstract topics in job descriptions anymore. They’re showing up as real interview questions from technical founders who know the difference between a candidate who’s read about AI and one who’s shipped it.
The premium is real, and it remains significant, as we explored in our post on what AI-native PMs are actually earning. But it’s getting narrower. Candidates who can demonstrate genuine depth are still commanding a meaningful premium. Candidates who’ve been using AI positioning loosely are finding the market has gotten better at identifying the difference.
Candidate Expectations Around Equity Are Hardening
This is the most notable shift in the second half of 2026. Senior product candidates are coming into offer conversations with more pointed questions about equity, and they’re less willing to accept vague answers.
The context matters. A cohort of senior product leaders who accepted significant equity packages at companies that raised in 2021 and 2022 have watched those positions become less valuable as companies restructured, repriced, or were acquired below their last valuation. That experience is in the room in every equity conversation right now, whether it gets named or not.
The questions candidates are asking now that they weren’t asking six months ago:
What’s the current 409A valuation relative to the last preferred price? Candidates want to know what the effective discount on their options actually looks like from day one, not what the headline number implies.
What does the cap table look like? Senior candidates at the VP and CPO level are asking about preferred stack and liquidation preferences with a directness that was previously associated with much later-stage executive hires.
What has dilution looked like across previous rounds, and what’s the plan for the next raise? Companies that have taken multiple rounds at aggressive valuations are finding candidates less willing to treat equity as a compelling part of the package without more transparency on this.
Companies that are used to closing senior candidates with “the upside is significant if things go well” are finding that line less effective than it used to be. The candidates worth hiring are the ones asking you to make the case specifically.
The Seed-Stage Premium Has Compressed
Earlier in the year, seed-stage companies could still attract strong product talent by leading with mission and upside. The comp gap between what an early-stage company could pay and what a growth-stage company could offer was something candidates were willing to bridge if the opportunity felt compelling enough.
That bridge is shorter now. Candidates who have watched colleagues at seed-stage companies go through layoffs, acqui-hires, or shutdowns are pricing risk more carefully. The equity upside has to be more compelling to offset the real uncertainty of whether a company will be operating in two years.
Comp offers that rely primarily on the upside story without a competitive base are losing candidates to Series B and growth-stage alternatives more consistently than they were six months ago. It’s not that early-stage companies can’t hire strong product leaders. They can. But the narrative and the offer have to work harder, and founders who assume candidates will discount heavily just because the opportunity is early are running into more friction at the close than they expect.
What helps at this stage: a clear articulation of what you’re hiring for, a realistic description of the product challenges the role will own, and a comp package as close to market as the company can get.
Where This Leaves the Market
The product compensation market in the second half of 2026 is not dramatically different from the first half, but it’s more exacting on both sides. Candidates are more specific in their questions. Companies are more precise in the premiums they’re willing to pay. The general statements that used to carry weight on both sides, “we offer competitive comp” from companies and “I have significant AI experience” from candidates, are doing less work than they used to.
What closes searches right now is specificity: a company that can articulate clearly what it’s paying and why, and a candidate who can demonstrate with concrete examples why the premium they’re asking for is grounded in something real.
After more than 300 product searches at venture-backed companies across North America, we know what that conversation looks like when it’s working and what’s getting in the way when it isn’t.
If you’re navigating a product search or a comp conversation right now, book a time with Martyn to talk through what we’re seeing in the market.