Staff Technical Program Manager

JOB SUMMARY

We are looking for a seasoned Staff Technical Program Manager to be the first TPM in our newly opened Sunnyvale, CA office. This is a high-autonomy, high-visibility role at the intersection of AI/ML infrastructure, robot perception, and strategic partnerships. You will lead complex, cross-functional programs spanning ML operations and perception for humanoid robotics, while serving as the primary program interface to one of our most important strategic AI partners — ensuring crisp communication, aligned priorities, and delivery against shared goals.

As the first TPM on the ground in Sunnyvale, you will wear many hats: standing up program structure for a new site, driving ML and perception program execution, and shaping how Apptronik collaborates with world-class external AI teams. You will set the strategic direction for how these programs are planned and executed, drive alignment between executive stakeholders and engineering leadership, and help scale the program management function as the Sunnyvale team grows.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES or KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

• New Site Program Leadership: Serve as the first TPM in the Sunnyvale office. Establish program management structure, cadences, and operating rhythms for a new and rapidly growing site, while staying tightly connected to Austin-based engineering and program leadership.
• MLOps Program Ownership: Own end-to-end execution of ML infrastructure and operations programs — including data pipelines, training and evaluation infrastructure, model release processes, and the tooling that enables rapid, reliable iteration on robot learning systems.
• Perception Program Leadership: Lead and TPM the perception team's program execution for humanoid robotics — driving roadmaps execution, milestones, and cross-functional integration of perception capabilities into the full robot stack.
• Strategic Partner Interface: Act as the primary program conduit to a key strategic AI partner. Ensure clear, proactive, bidirectional communication; translate partner needs into internal execution plans; track joint milestones and deliverables; and ensure Apptronik is consistently meeting partner expectations while advocating for Apptronik's priorities.
• Ownership: Own program execution end to end. Set strategic direction, identify resource requirements, and be accountable for executing on company goals and roadmap. Challenge assumptions at the org level and foster a results-driven culture.
• Orchestration: Partner directly with engineering leadership to execute solutions and adapt quickly when priorities shift. Coordinate across engineering, research, operations, and executive leadership — internally and externally — to keep all stakeholders aligned and informed.
• Communication: Proactively communicate program status, risks, trade-offs, and decisions to executive stakeholders and partner counterparts. Clearly articulate requirements, goals, and milestones across teams and up to leadership.
• Leadership & Mentorship: Mentor and develop other TPMs as the Sunnyvale team scales. Define and continuously improve program management practices, frameworks, and tooling that elevate the entire function.

SKILLS AND REQUIREMENTS

• MLOps & ML Infrastructure Program Leadership — Deep experience running programs across the ML lifecycle: data collection and curation, training and evaluation infrastructure, edge inference and model deployment, and the data pipelines that enable robot skill learning at scale. Fluency in the tooling, workflows, and failure modes of modern ML systems spanning cloud and edge.
• Perception Systems Experience — Demonstrated ability to lead programs for perception and sensing teams (computer vision, sensor fusion, tactile and multi-modal sensing, state estimation, scene understanding), ideally for robotics or other real-world embodied systems.
• Partner & External Stakeholder Management — Proven success serving as the program interface to external technical partners: managing joint roadmaps, resolving cross-org dependencies, and building trust through consistent, transparent communication. 
• Hands-On Technical Partnership — Deep ability to engage with engineering and research teams on architectural decisions, interface definition, and complex technical problem-solving — operating as a peer to engineering leadership, not just managing schedules.
• Comfort with Ambiguity & Breadth — Willingness and ability to wear many hats as one of the initial hires at a new site: program execution, site operations, partner management, and function building, often in the same week.
• System-Level Product Development Leadership — Experience leading hardware + software product life cycles from concept through deployment, across multiple concurrent programs.
• Cross-Disciplinary System Integration — Expert-level experience coordinating AI/ML, software, firmware, controls, and hardware teams to deliver fully integrated, sophisticated systems.
• New Technology Introduction — Demonstrated success maturing novel technologies from prototype toward scalable deployment, including subsystem qualification, reliability, and supplier/partner co-development models.
• Program Execution & Results Orientation — Strong track record of driving measurable outcomes at scale, managing critical path and interdependencies across portfolios, and delivering against company roadmap goals.
• Influence in Resource-Constrained Environments — Proven ability to align product, engineering, research, and executive teams, prioritize across competing demands, and execute successfully in fast-paced, limited-resource settings.
• Strategic Thinking — Ability to translate company strategy into actionable program plans and influence roadmap decisions through data-driven insight.

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical, Computer, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, or Applied Physics required
• 10+ years of experience in technical program management or engineering management, including leading cross-functional teams across ML/AI and software, with demonstrated experience operating at a senior or staff level
• Preferred: Experience in robotics, autonomous systems, or embodied AI
• Preferred: Direct experience with robot learning, manipulation/dexterous systems, VLA models, or large-scale ML data and training programs
• Preferred: Experience with edge AI inference platforms and embedded systems integration
• Preferred: Master's degree in Engineering or Computer Science

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:

• Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer
• Must be able to lift 15 pounds at times
• Vision to read printed materials and a computer screen
• Hearing and speech to communicate

The annual compensation range for this position is $250,000-$285,000.