Technical Program Manager (Lead)

About Phaidra

Phaidra is building the future of industrial automation.

The world today is filled with static, monolithic infrastructure. Factories, power plants, buildings, etc. operate the same they've operated for decades — because the controls programming is hard-coded. Thousands of lines of rules and heuristics that define how the machines interact with each other. The result of all this hard-coding is that facilities are frozen in time, unable to adapt to their environment while their performance slowly degrades.

Phaidra creates AI-powered control systems for the industrial sector, enabling industrial facilities to automatically learn and improve over time. Specifically:

• We use reinforcement learning algorithms to provide this intelligence, converting raw sensor data into high-value actions and decisions.
• We focus on industrial applications, which tend to be well-sensorized with measurable KPIs — perfect for reinforcement learning.
• We enable domain experts (our users) to configure the AI control systems (i.e. agents) without writing code. They define what they want their AI agents to do, and we do it for them.

Our team has a track record of applying AI to some of the toughest problems. From achieving superhuman performance with DeepMind's AlphaGo, to reducing the energy required to cool Google's Data Centers by 40%, we deeply understand AI and how to apply it in production for massive impact.

Phaidra is based in the USA but 100% remote; we do not have a physical office. We hire employees internationally with the help of our partner, OysterHR. Our team is currently located throughout the USA, Canada, UK, Norway, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and India.

**Please only apply to one opening. If you are a better fit for another opening, our team will move your application. Candidates who apply to multiple openings will not be considered.**

Who You Are

You’re a self starter and you’re comfortable with the unknown and understand that startup life means that you’re going to be wearing multiple hats. You’re accountable, curious, and obsessed with improvement, both in yourself and in others. You like a challenge, aren’t afraid to fail and learn from your missteps and are excited to help build a world-class company from the ground up.

As the Technical Program Manager (Lead) at Phaidra Engineering, you will own the core TPM function. The ideal candidate is an influential technical leader who can thrive and succeed in an entrepreneurial environment. You are able separate what's important from what's urgent and find the best path forward from among multiple scenarios, earn the trust of stakeholders, and improve the efficiency of our cross-functional organization. You possess a strong technical program management background and have demonstrated experience leading medium to large projects.

*We are seeking a team member located within one of the following areas: USA/Canada/UK/EU

Responsibilities

• Core Technical Program Management & Cross-Functional Leadership: Develop and manage complex technology projects across multiple teams, ensuring operational excellence -
  • Work with engineering and product leadership to solve key problems. Have a wide view of the architecture & teams and help identify what already exists and doesn’t exist in terms of technology, skill set, headcount and processes.
  • Work with product & engineering teams to ensure the solution is broken down into manageable pieces, functional specifications & inter-team contracts are well defined and that the project is scoped correctly.
  • Define the schedule with checkpoints & milestones and ensure on time delivery of the project.
  • Be a voice to senior leadership to ensure appropriate hiring is done in the technical teams.
  • Understand security & compliance considerations of the entire **project and ensure they are included in the non-functional requirements.
  • Drive the right vendor partnerships & support to de-risk projects.

1. Monitoring & Communication: Monitor program progress and keep all stakeholders & leadership informed of the progress of all projects and of any issues that may impact deliverables.
2. Risk & Dependency Management: Proactively identify potential risks and issues within projects, developing contingency plans and solutions to address them.
3. Process Development: Establish and implement effective processes and methodolog