Technical Program Manager

Basis is a nonprofit applied AI research organization with two mutually reinforcing goals.

The first is to understand and build intelligence. This means to establish the mathematical principles of what it means to reason, to learn, to make decisions, to understand, and to explain; and to construct software that implements these principles.

The second is to advance society’s ability to solve intractable problems. This means expanding the scale, complexity, and breadth of problems that we can solve today, and even more importantly, accelerating our ability to solve problems in the future.

To achieve these goals, we’re building both a new technological foundation that draws inspiration from how humans reason, and a new kind of collaborative organization that puts human values first.

We’re seeking a Technical Program Manager who is deeply passionate about program management to drive ambitious research projects forward. You’ll work across several projects, serving as a linchpin between our researchers, engineering teams, leadership, and external collaborators, requiring both technical depth and project management expertise.

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  Develop and maintain project roadmaps, translating long-term strategic goals into milestones and tasks

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  Run regular team meetings, triaging issues, and ensuring research scientists and engineers stay on track

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  Coordinate between core technical and project teams, identifying and resolving dependencies

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  Write and review technical design documents and project plans

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  Model human, compute, and financial resources across projects

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  Contribute technically when necessary

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  Engage with external project-partners, nurturing existing relationships and cultivating new collaborations

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  Continuously refine Basis’ approach to project management in research

We’re looking for someone with:

• 4+ years managing technical (scientific/engineering) projects, with demonstrable impact

• PhD-level comprehension of AI/ML concepts (though a PhD itself isn’t required)

• Proficiency with project management tools such as Linear, JIRA, or equivalent

• Familiarity with version control systems (e.g., Git) and collaboration tools (e.g., Notion, GSuite)

• Exceptional writing skills, able to communicate complex ideas clearly and concisely

More important than any specific qualification is your ability to navigate uncertainty and find clarity in complexity. The problems we’re tackling don’t have clear solutions—that’s why we’re tackling them.

Our ideal candidate is someone who:

• Thinks from first principles, knowing when to adopt or discard standard practices

• Simplifies complexity and sees unnecessary processes as problems to be solved

• Automates everything that should be automated

• Makes tough calls on project direction and resource allocation, often with incomplete information

• Excels at distilling nebulous research questions into concrete, actionable project plans

• Understands the human side of research, balances individual team-member needs with project progress

• Works and acts quickly, maintaining team momentum at the right level of intensity

• Relentlessly reduces uncertainty and ambiguity—is persistent in getting clarity

• Has expertise in our core technical areas including statistics, causal reasoning, probabilistic machine learning, and/or programming languages, with an appetite to learn more

• Is a fast learner, able to quickly build upon a solid mathematical foundation into the diverse technical areas that we work in

• Obsesses over effective program management and continuously asks, “How can we do this better?”

• Location: NY

• Work Mode: In-person

• Employment Type: Full-time

• Salary: $100,000 - $160,000

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Basis Research Institute provides equal employment opportunities without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or genetics and prohibits discrimination based on all protected characteristics.

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