Program Manager, Operations

Snapshot

Artificial Intelligence could be one of humanity’s most useful inventions. At Google DeepMind, we’re a team of scientists, engineers, machine learning experts and more, working together to advance the state of the art in artificial intelligence. We use our technologies for widespread public benefit and scientific discovery, and collaborate with others on critical challenges, ensuring safety and ethics are the highest priority.

About Us

The role of the Program Management Team is to shape and accelerate the delivery of GDM’s highest priority programs to make fast-paced progress towards our mission. We continually pursue scalable and sustainable ways to optimise our work, striving to ensure we cultivate an environment where people can be both highly collaborative and deeply creative, making progress at pace. We build positive relationships with teams, bringing clarity to ambiguity and providing stability during change. We are active, curious and thoughtful about deepening our understanding of people and driving successful outcomes on programs.. We continually deepen our domain knowledge to ensure all our work is advancing towards our mission.

The role

Sitting within our wider Operations Group, this role is part of the CORE Programs team. This team leads operational design and build across several parts of the business. Collaborating closely with all of GDM’s functions, CORE Programs has a unique central viewpoint of the business’ current and future needs with its core purpose to successfully deliver our most strategic and impactful initiatives, enabling Google DeepMind to grow, thrive and accelerate towards the mission in the most effective way possible.

In this role you will continually move across a variety of high priority, company-wide programs and initiatives to scope and deliver against critical and continually evolving deliverables and set programs up for long term success. Working with partners across all teams, you'll build direction and structure, craft creative solutions and simplify complexity.

This role requires someone who is innovative and collaborative in their approach to problem solving, and a history of being a self-starter. It’s crucial you have significant experience leading and managing both large-scale programs and rapid system improvements, excellent judgement and communication skills and a passion for continuous learning.

Key Responsibilities:

• Portfolio Management
• Create and maintain a comprehensive and current portfolio view of all cross-team priority programs, dynamically tracking their prioritization and staffing allocations.
• Facilitate prioritization and resourcing trade-off discussions by providing clear data and analytics, and advocate for necessary staffing adjustments.
• Provide regular reporting on the portfolio's status, including progress, risks, and dependencies, to inform decision-making at all levels.
• Business Case Building
• Rapidly assess internal operating environments and collaborate with diverse stakeholders to identify gaps and problem areas in need of improvement, automation, and/or improved process and policy design.
• Lead the "incubation" of key ideas that are important but not yet fully prioritized or conceptualized, workshopping them into structured programmatic frameworks.
• Develop robust business cases, where required, during the incubation phase to justify program initiation and resource allocation.

 

• Program Delivery & Stakeholder Management 
• Lead both small-scale programs for rapid improvement against critical needs, and large-scale programs in highly complex areas.
• Develop  and leverage deep technical domain understanding to drive rapid progress.
• Drive end-to-end program design, planning, and delivery, expertly applying program methodologies, tools, and techniques such as critical path management, program planning, dependency tracking, program reporting, and decision-making frameworks.
• Partner effectively with multiple senior stakeholders across the organization, adapting communication and engagement approaches to diverse audiences.
• Proactively share critical program information with key decision-makers, influencing positive outcomes and fostering alignment.

 

• Operational Excellence & Team Leadership
• Collaborate with leaders, researchers, engineers, and wider teams to translate work into clear, actionable objectives, proactively managing risks, anticipating issues, and developing creative solutions.
• Navigate ambiguous and changeable environments with agility, maintaining accurate program documentation, tracking progress meticulously, and proactively proposing solutions to emerging issues and risks.
• Foster strong team engagement by building positive relationships, offering constructive feedback, challenging conventional thinking, and inspiring team members to reach their full potential.

About you

In order to set you up for success as a Program Manager at Google DeepMind, we look for the following skills and experience:

• Extensive experience in managing sizeable programs across a variety of operating environments, with proven skill to navigate through ambiguity and adjust and adapt program strategies as conditions change.
• Experience of operational improvement programs, including process, policy, systems, and operating model change.
• Instinctual understanding of how systems, process, policy, and people intersect to create productive operating environments.
• Experience in managing complex programs and organisational change, solving challenges and implementing sustainable solutions.
• Extensive experience partnering with senior stakeholders, adapting approach to stakeholder preferences and navigating conflicting priorities
• Strong communicator, able to quickly develop meaningful relationships with key partners and use these to influence action and outcomes
• Experience in leading individuals from a diverse set of backgrounds in an ambitious environment
• Experience supporting teams in fast-paced and constantly evolving environments. Some experience in a Research, Product or Tech environment preferred but not required.
• Naturally curious and enjoy working across a large range of different subjects with ease, quickly gaining the knowledge you need to be effective.
• Humbly productive, flexible under pressure, and positive even when things get tough.
• Passionate about our mission, proactive about learning and acquiring knowledge to enhance your experience.