About the role
Autonomy ships only when perception, planning, controls, embedded software, hardware, safety and field test all line up. The TPM owns that alignment: a plan with real dependencies, a single definition of done for each milestone and an honest view of what is at risk, so the team never learns about a slip from a test report.
A vehicle release depends on sensor builds, software gates, simulation results, track time and safety sign-off, many of them owned by different people with different clocks. You work with engineering leads to sequence them and to surface trade-offs while they are still cheap to resolve. The same programme discipline supports other Clexerl ventures that borrow from the autonomy bench, so your planning templates are written to be reused.
This is an engineering-adjacent role. You will read design documents, join technical reviews and understand why a latency budget or a calibration step blocks a release.
What you’ll do
- Own the integrated schedule across software, hardware, simulation, field test and safety, with explicit dependencies and critical-path tracking.
- Define release milestones and exit criteria with engineering and safety leads, and run the gate reviews that decide go or no-go.
- Identify risks early, quantify their schedule and quality impact, and drive mitigation owners to concrete dates.
- Coordinate vehicle builds, test track bookings and fleet allocation so engineering teams have what they need when they need it.
- Run a steady cadence of status, retrospectives and post-mortems that produce decisions and written actions, not meeting minutes.
- Report progress to leadership in plain terms, including what has slipped, why, and what is being done.
What you’ll bring
- Several years as a technical programme manager or engineering lead on a hardware and software product with real integration risk.
- Enough technical fluency in robotics, embedded systems or machine learning to follow a design review and challenge an estimate.
- Experience building schedules with dependencies, using tools such as Linear or equivalent, and keeping them accurate over months.
- A record of running release gates or launch reviews where the answer was sometimes no.
- Clear writing and direct communication: you can state a risk in one paragraph and a decision in one sentence.
- Comfort working across engineers, safety staff and test operators without relying on authority.
Nice to have
- Experience in automotive, aerospace or robotics programmes with a formal safety process.
- Background in software engineering or hardware engineering before moving into programme management.
- Experience managing a fleet of test vehicles and the logistics of build, maintenance and scheduling.
- Familiarity with metrics-driven release practices, such as scenario coverage and regression dashboards.
Work you might take on
- 01
Build an integrated plan for the next vehicle software release, identify the critical path and agree exit criteria with each engineering lead.
- 02
Introduce a weekly risk review with quantified schedule impact, and retire the first set of aged risks to closure.
- 03
Coordinate a sensor hardware revision across mechanical, electrical, calibration and field test so vehicles are upgraded with minimal fleet downtime.
- 04
Design a go or no-go gate checklist that links simulation results, track evidence and safety sign-off into one view.
Compensation
$190K – $290K
The US base salary range for this role. Every offer also includes equity in Clexerl and, when it spins out, in the venture you help build. We tell you the reasoning behind your number.
Benefits
Health, fully covered
Medical, dental and vision for you and your dependants, premiums paid in full.
Two kinds of equity
Equity in Clexerl, plus a stake in the venture you help build when it spins out.
22 weeks parental leave
Fully paid, for every parent, however your family arrives.
Rest that sticks
Flexible time off with a four-week minimum we actually check on, plus a company-wide week in December.
Learning and compute
A yearly budget for courses, conferences and books, and compute credits for side projects.
401(k) with a 4% match
Matched from your first paycheque and vested immediately.
How we hire
Apply 5 minutes
Send links to what you have built and a few lines on why this role. No cover letter needed.
Intro call 30 minutes
A conversation with the hiring manager about the work, the team and what you want next.
Work sample 2–4 hours
A paid take-home or a pairing session on a real-shaped problem. You pick the format.
Studio day One day
Meet the team, go deep on your work and ours. Remote or in person.
Offer Within 5 days
A written offer with the full range, the equity and the reasoning behind both.
Opens an email with a short template. Links beat résumés.