Technical Program Manager- ML

FieldAI’s Irvine team is where embodied AI meets real robots, real sensors, and real field deployments. Based in the heart of Southern California’s robotics ecosystem, we build risk-aware, reliable, field-ready AI systems that solve the hardest problems in robotics and unlock the full potential of embodied intelligence. If you want your work to ship, get tested on hardware, and improve through real deployments, Irvine is the place. We go beyond typical data-driven approaches or pure transformer-only architectures, combining rigorous engineering with learning systems proven in globally deployed solutions that deliver results today and get better every time our robots run in the field.

Our Perception & AI/ML organization runs several research and engineering programs at once, and they converge on the same robots in the same customer deployments. Priorities shift — that is the nature of the work — and when they do, someone needs to know what the shift costs, who it affects, and what we tell the customer.

That is this role. You will be the connective layer between what customers need, what the company has committed to, and what the research and engineering teams are actually building. You will report directly to the VP leading Perception & AI/ML and work closely with the broader leadership team.

This is not a process-administration job. You will be expected to hold an accurate picture of a large, fast-moving technical organization, form your own view of what is at risk, and say so early — including when that is unwelcome.

• Own the program-level picture across concurrent research and engineering workstreams: what is in flight, who owns it, what is due, and what is slipping.

• Translate customer and product requirements into prioritized internal work, and keep delivery timelines honest against what has been committed externally.

• Serve as a program-level point of contact for customer deployments — carrying their needs inward, and carrying status, tradeoffs, and timelines back out.

• Surface risks and blockers before they become schedule problems, and drive them to resolution across teams.

• Run the re-prioritization conversations when commitments change: what continues, what pauses, what gets reassigned, and who needs to hear about it.

• Build reporting and tracking that engineers will actually maintain — enough signal to steer by, light enough to survive a fast quarter.

• Partner with senior technical leads and the leadership team without directing the technical approach.

• 4–7 years as a Technical Program Manager or equivalent, supporting AI/ML or data-driven engineering teams.

• Experience across the AI/ML lifecycle — data collection and labeling, model training, evaluation, and deployment.

• Experience working directly with customers or external stakeholders, turning their needs into internal priorities and timelines.

• A demonstrated track record of bringing structure to ambiguous, fast-moving technical programs.

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical discipline (Computer Science, Engineering, or related), or equivalent practical experience.

• Experience in autonomous vehicles, robotics, drones, embedded systems, or another autonomy domain.

• Experience supporting AI/ML programs at scale inside a larger technology organization — recommendations, ranking, ads, or consumer AI.

• Background in data operations, data security, or systems integration.

• Experience supporting field operations or production customer deployments.

• Comfort acting as a trusted technical point of contact for customers in mission-critical deployments.

• Fluency with Notion, Slack, and Google Workspace — and the judgment to keep tooling minimal.

• PMP, Certified Scrum Master, or equivalent Agile certification.

• Startup or high-growth experience, with a strong bias toward ownership and urgency.