Sam Hagman

About

I’m a classically trained Full-stack Engineer who always dabbled beyond coding, collaborating with design, marketing, sales, etc. After being a lead engineer at a startup for a few years, I realized I had a passion for deciding WHAT to build and WHY. I began focusing on what customers wanted vs needed and how to serve them best. After our acquisition, I continued my transition to product and loved every minute.

In my career, I’ve been able to do some pretty cool things:

  • Senior/Lead Engineer & TPM at a startup from pre-revenue → $1M+ ARR → acquisition
  • Launch a gamified loyalty platform in a hyper-growth startup to X00k+ users
  • Developed cross-org GTM strategy to launch a marketplace app in 17+ new US cities
  • Researched & A/B tested my way to $M of impact in user retention, contact rate, & key conversions.
  • Leveraged AI to develop marketplace optimization algorithms to get >$1MM in annual savings
  • Used generative AI at scale to power magical user experiences

How I like to work:

  • Collaboratively
  • Getting into the technical and design details
  • In fast-paced environments
  • User-centric but business-minded

What I do in my free time:

  • Mentor young entrepreneurs at my alma mater, Boston University
  • Check if https://artificialanalysis.ai/ has any updates way too often
  • Hack on my side projects
  • Watch the 18-time World Champion Boston Celtics play basketball
  • Take care of too many plants in my apartment
  • Go outside, find nature, repeat
  • Photography

What I’m working on now:

Today, I’m Head of Product at Onboarded, where we’re building the infrastructure behind hiring compliance. There’s a lot that has to happen between accepting a job and getting paid: forms, identity checks, work eligibility, and requirements that change with the client, role, and location. We turn that into workflows that run in the right order, track deadlines, and keep a record of what happened and why. Partners can embed the experience in their own products, and AI agents can use the same API without getting to make up the rules. It’s a mix of product, engineering, and design: make the complicated parts reliable, and the worker’s next step simple.

Work so far

  1. 2025 – nowHead of ProductOnboarded
  2. 2023 – 2025Senior Product ManagerInstawork
  3. 2021 – 2023Product ManagerInstawork
  4. 2017 – 2021Technical Product Manager and Lead EngineerDrafted (acquired)
  5. 2016 – 2017Senior Software DeveloperDrafted
  6. 2014 – 2016Software DeveloperHarvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
  7. 2013 – 2014Web DeveloperScriptick

B.A., Computer Science, Boston University, 2010 – 2014