Terms and privacy.

1. Who you are dealing with

This site and the coaching and advisory services on it are offered by TJ Saenz as an individual, based in Texas, United States. I have a day job in product, and none of this work is done for, endorsed by, or connected to my employer. Nothing I say in a session represents my employer's views, and I will not discuss my employer's confidential information with you.

When these terms say "I" or "me" they mean TJ Saenz. "You" means the person booking or using the services, or reading this site.

2. What I offer

Two kinds of work, described on the coaching and advisory pages:

• Career coaching. Career mentorship, mock interviews, async reviews of a resume or LinkedIn profile, and long-term coaching for product managers. Some of it is asynchronous written feedback, some of it is live conversation.
• Product advisory. Product and AI strategy, discovery, and advisory work for teams.

Before anything starts we agree in writing, usually over email, on what you are getting, what it costs, and roughly when. That written exchange plus this page is the whole agreement. If the two ever conflict, what we agreed in email wins.

Advisory work for a company is usually scoped in a separate statement of work. Where one exists, it takes precedence over these terms for that engagement.

3. Booking and scheduling

Submitting the form on this site is not a booking. It tells me what you are interested in and starts a conversation. An engagement begins when we have agreed on scope and price and you have paid, unless we agreed otherwise in writing.

Long-term coaching starts with a free fit call: about 30 minutes on where you are, nothing charged, and we both decide whether it is a fit. Booking one commits you to nothing.

Live sessions are scheduled by email at a time that works for both of us. Sessions run for the length quoted, typically 60 minutes. If you arrive late, the session still ends at the scheduled time.

Asynchronous work has the turnaround quoted on the service, and the clock starts when you have sent me everything I need. An async review — a resume, a LinkedIn profile, or both — is three business days per round, and it includes two rounds: I send the first rewrite, you react, I revise once more. Unused rounds expire 30 days after purchase.

4. Fees and payment

Current rates are quoted in the email you get after submitting the form, and in any statement of work. Rates can change, but a rate quoted to you holds for that engagement.

Unless we agree otherwise:

• One-off sessions and reviews are paid in full before the work starts.
• Session packs are paid in full up front. Sessions in a pack do not expire — book them whenever you are ready.
• Long-term coaching is billed monthly in advance, with a two-month minimum. After those first two months it runs month-to-month, and either of us can stop it with two weeks' notice before the next billing date.
• Advisory work is invoiced as set out in the statement of work, payable within 14 days.

Prices are in US dollars. You are responsible for any taxes that apply where you are, and for any fees your bank or payment provider charges.

5. Rescheduling and cancellations

Things come up. Here is how I handle it.

If you need to move a session

Tell me at least 24 hours before the start time and we will find another slot at no cost. Inside 24 hours, or if you do not show up, that session counts as used. If something genuinely unavoidable happens, tell me and I will almost certainly be reasonable about it.

If I need to move a session

I will give you as much notice as I can and reschedule at a time that suits you. If a replacement time does not work for you, you get that session refunded in full.

Ending an engagement

You can stop working with me at any time. Tell me by email. Unused, unstarted sessions are refunded as described below, and long-term coaching runs to the end of the two-month minimum described above. Either of us can end an engagement immediately if the other behaves abusively or unlawfully.

6. Refunds

• Sessions you have not used and I have not scheduled are refunded in full.
• Sessions already delivered, and asynchronous work already started, are not refunded — on an async review that means once the first rewrite has gone out, whether or not you use the second round.
• If I cancel and cannot offer you a workable replacement, you are refunded in full.
• If you are genuinely unhappy with a session, tell me within seven days. I would rather fix it or refund it than have you carry it around.

Refunds go back the way the payment came, usually within ten business days.

7. What this is not

Coaching is advice and practice. It is not a placement service and it is not a guarantee. I cannot promise you an interview, an offer, a promotion, a raise, a visa, or any other outcome, and nothing on this site or in a session should be read as promising one. What you get out of this depends mostly on what you do with it.

I am not a lawyer, an accountant, a financial adviser, a therapist, or an immigration adviser, and nothing I say is legal, tax, financial, medical, or immigration advice. If a decision needs one of those, go get one.

Advisory work is recommendation and analysis. Decisions about your product, your team, and your business stay yours.

8. Confidentiality

What you tell me in a session stays between us. I will not share your name, your employer, your resume, your compensation, your interview performance, or anything else you tell me, and I will not use your situation as an example anywhere without asking you first and getting a yes.

The same runs the other way for advisory work: I will treat your company's non-public information as confidential and will sign your NDA if you have one.

Two narrow exceptions. I may have to disclose something if the law requires it, and I may act without your permission if I believe someone is at risk of serious harm.

Testimonials only ever go up with your explicit written approval of the exact wording and how you are credited.

9. Who owns what

Your resume, your documents, your product plans, and everything else you bring stay yours. Written feedback I produce for you is yours to use however you like.

Frameworks, templates, exercises, and materials I bring to the work stay mine. You are welcome to use them for yourself or inside your own team. Please do not resell them, publish them, or run them as your own paid programme.

The writing, design, images, and code on this site are mine. You can quote a reasonable amount with credit and a link. Do not republish whole posts.

10. Your information

I run this site myself and I do not want your data any more than I need it.

What I collect

• What you type into the contact form. Your name, your email address, the services you ticked, your company if you enter one, whatever you write in the message box, and whether you ticked the box asking to hear from me.
• Anything you send me afterwards. Emails, resumes, documents, and notes I take during a session.
• A record of what happened next. Whether you bought something and what it was, when we met, and — if you asked to be emailed — the date you asked and the date you stopped.
• Basic, aggregated site analytics. Which pages get visited and which links get clicked. This is not tied to a name, and I do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

What I do with it

I use it to reply to you, to do the work you have hired me for, and to keep the records I need for tax and accounting. It lives in a database rather than only in my inbox, so that I can pick up where we left off instead of asking you the same questions a second time. I do not sell it, rent it, trade it, or hand it to anyone for marketing.

The mailing list is a separate thing, and it is opt-in. Filling in the contact form does not put you on it. There is a checkbox, it starts unticked, and nothing is added unless you tick it yourself. If you do, you will get the occasional email from me, and every one of them carries an unsubscribe link that works immediately.

Who else touches it

A few services I use to run this, each of which only sees what it needs:

• Vercel hosts the site and provides the privacy-friendly, cookie-free analytics.
• Neon runs the database the records above are kept in.
• Resend delivers the form submission to my inbox, sends you the reply, and sends the mailing list if you are on it.
• Cal.com handles the scheduling if you book a call.
• My email and calendar provider holds our correspondence and any scheduled sessions.
• A payment processor handles payment when there is one. Card details go to them, never to me, and I never see or store your full card number.

How long I keep it

Enquiries that go nowhere get deleted within about a year. Records tied to paid work stick around as long as tax and accounting rules require, which in the US is generally seven years. Session notes get deleted when the engagement ends unless you ask me to keep them.

If you join the mailing list you stay on it until you unsubscribe. When you do, I keep your email address on a do-not-email list and nothing else happens with it. That record is the only reliable way to be certain you are not added back by some later import, so it outlives the rest — keeping it is what makes the unsubscribe stick.

What you can ask for

Email me and ask for a copy of what I hold on you, a correction, or deletion, and I will sort it out within 30 days. Deletion requests are honoured except where I am legally required to keep a record, or where the do-not-email record described above has to stay so that an unsubscribe is not quietly undone. Depending on where you live you may have further rights under laws such as the GDPR or the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act. Ask and I will apply them.

Security, honestly stated

I take reasonable care: reputable providers, access limited to me, and no storage of payment details. No system is perfectly secure, so please do not send me government identification numbers, passwords, or anything else you would not want sitting in an inbox.

11. This website

The blog posts and pages here are opinion and experience, offered as-is. They are not advice for your specific situation, and product management being what it is, something true in one company is wrong in the next.

Links out to other sites are there because I found them useful. I do not control them and I am not responsible for what they do.

I try to keep the site up and correct, but I cannot promise it is always available, always current, or free of errors.

12. Limits of responsibility

To the fullest extent the law allows, I am not liable for indirect or consequential losses, including lost income, lost profits, lost opportunities, or a job you did not get. My total liability for any engagement is capped at what you actually paid me for it.

Nothing here limits liability for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.

13. Changes to these terms

I will update this page when the way I work changes, and the date at the top will tell you when. The version in force for your engagement is the one published when you booked. If a change materially affects work already underway, I will tell you directly rather than expecting you to notice.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, United States.

14. Getting in touch

Questions about any of this, or a request about your data, go to contact@tjsaenz.com. A real person reads it, and it is me.