Technical Program Manager, Applied ML

About This Role

This role drives the end-to-end execution of the Applied ML team’s initiatives: ensuring data quality, contributor marketplace efficiency, and extending horizontal ML capabilities across business units. You’ll own program delivery from scoping to measurable adoption, while serving as the communication backbone across engineering, product, and leadership. You will be accountable for measurable outcomes: higher data quality, faster contributor onboarding, and adoption of horizontal ML capabilities across BUs.

You will manage the entire lifecycle of our cutting-edge GenAI initiatives, from initial scoping and prototyping to deployment of LLM-based techniques in production. This is a high-impact, cross-functional role requiring a deep understanding of ML engineering processes, risk management, and rapid iteration in a demanding AI environment. You will ensure the MLE team maintains focus, resolves dependencies, and rapidly delivers reliable, high-value ML solutions at scale.

You will:

• Own the end-to-end planning, scheduling, and execution for multiple GenAI ML programs, ensuring high-quality, on-time delivery against product goals.
• Collaborate closely with Product Managers and ML Engineers/Scientists to translate vision into clear, iterative execution plans.
• Ensure our ML systems move from prototype to production smoothly, by aligning engineering, research, and product teams around clear milestones, risks, and delivery standards.
• Translate technical complexity into concise, actionable updates for executive and cross-functional stakeholders. Drive clarity across teams by ensuring everyone understands priorities, risks, and outcomes.
• Proactively identify, track, and mitigate technical risks unique to GenAI development (e.g., model drift, prompt engineering evolution, data security/privacy, resource contention on large-scale compute).
• Manage dependencies and communication across core teams (e.g., Platform Infrastructure, Data Engineering, Product) to seamlessly integrate ML services into production microservice architectures.
• Provide clear, concise, and structured status reports to all stakeholders, including executive leadership, detailing project health, roadblocks, and delivery forecasts.

Ideally you’d have:

• 5+ years of experience as a Technical Program Manager or similar technical leadership role managing complex software or machine learning development projects.
• 2+ years of experience managing programs specifically focused on Applied Machine Learning, MLOps, or Data Science.
• Familiarity with the Generative AI lifecycle, including the application of LLMs (Large Language Models) for structured downstream tasks, model fine-tuning, and performance evaluation.
• Ability to reason about system architecture, data flow, and key technical challenges in building scalable ML services in cloud environments (e.g., using AWS, GCP, or similar microservice infrastructure).
• Experience with Agile methods and tools (e.g., Jira, Linear).
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with a proven ability to translate complex technical challenges into clear program risks and business impacts for executive audiences.
• Interest in learning and engaging with modern ML/GenAI practices.

Nice to have:

• Hands-on familiarity with high-performance compute infrastructure for ML training and deployment in real-world products..
• Familiarity with data quality pipelines or internal evaluation frameworks
• Strong software engineering fundamentals, ideally having prior experience as an engineer or developer before transitioning into program management.
• Experience driving adoption of technical platforms across multiple product lines or business units.

PLEASE NOTE: Our policy requires a 90-day waiting period before reconsidering candidates for the same role. This allows us to ensure a fair and thorough evaluation of all applicants.

About Us:

At Scale, our mission is to develop reliable AI systems for the world's most important decisions. Our products provide the high-quality data and full-stack technologies that power the world's leading models, and help enterprises and governments build, deploy, and oversee AI applications that deliver real impact. We work closely with industry leaders like Meta, Cisco, DLA Piper, Mayo Clinic, Time Inc., the Government of Qatar, and U.S. government agencies including the Army and Air Force. We are expanding our team to accelerate the development of AI applications.

We believe that everyone should be able to bring their whole selves to work, which is why we are proud to be an inclusive and equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability status, gender identity or Veteran status. 

We are committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with physical and mental disabilities. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation in the application or recruiting process due to a disability, please contact us at accommodations@scale.com. Please see the United States Department of Labor's Know Your Rights poster for additional information.

We comply with the United States Department of Labor's Pay Transparency provision. 

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