Senior Program Manager

Job Description

Alert Venture Foundry (AVF) is a technology venture studio that creates and develops technology-driven businesses from pure research through positive cash flow, then launches them as independent companies. Our projects span a diverse range of technologies and markets, including Flying Tools, robots with a long flexible arm and flying end effectors; Georgie's Kitchen, a direct-to-consumer food business delivering chef-crafted, premium chilled meals through a proprietary distribution technology; and several other projects still in early-stage research.

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About the Role

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AVF's Program Management Office is standing up the operating rhythm that lets a small, fast-scaling engineering org run multiple hardware-intensive ventures at once, without Lead Engineers or the Chief Research & Development Officer carrying the schedule in their heads. Reporting to the Head of PMO, you'll own the program plan for one or more active AVF ventures: milestones, critical path, dependencies, and staffing, tracked as a living plan.

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This is a hands-on program management role inside a resource-constrained, multi-program portfolio, not a status-reporting job. You'll work side-by-side with the head engineer and be the person who makes a program runnable.

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What You'll Do

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• Own the integrated program plan for one or more active AVF ventures — robotics hardware platforms, embedded systems, or connected physical products — including milestones, critical path, cross-team dependencies, staffing requirements, and key technical and program risks
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• Run weekly plan reconciliation with each program's Lead Engineer; hold the team accountable to a plan you own, not one handed to you after the fact
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• Apply AVF's standard PMO operating cadence and templates, including 4-Quad status, workstream reviews, phase gate reviews, risk registers, and NPI stage entry/exit criteria
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• Track cross-program dependencies — including resourcing, technical, and vendor — and surface conflicts before they impact program schedules
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• Translate program plans into dated staffing requirements and feed them into AVF's portfolio-wide supply/demand model
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• Understand system architecture and follow technical risk reviews closely enough to challenge schedule assumptions on technical grounds, without owning the underlying engineering decisions
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• Identify schedule threats early, develop recovery options with the team, and drive decisions and escalations when milestones, resources, or technical dependencies are at risk
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• Contribute to the executive-facing portfolio rollup, ensuring leadership has a clear view of program health, major risks, dependencies, and resource needs
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What We're Looking For

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Required Skills

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• 7+ years of technical program or project management experience, with meaningful experience in hardware, robotics, or other physical-systems product development
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• A track record of owning a program plan end to end in a fast-moving, resource-constrained environment
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• Experience driving cross-functional teams towards milestones and commitments without direct authority
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• Comfortable reading technical dependencies across mechanical, electrical, software, and controls well enough to sequence a schedule around them and recognize when technical assumptions put the plan at risk
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• Experience building or standardizing program management process, including templates, cadences, planning structures, and reporting practices
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• Direct, low-ego communicator who can hold engineering leads accountable without owning their technical decisions
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• Proficiency with Jira, SharePoint, Confluence or comparable program management and collaboration tools, and experience building reliable sources of truth and tracking that goes beyond spreadsheets
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Preferred, but not required

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• Experience in a venture studio, multi-program portfolio, or startup running several concurrent product lines
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• Background with NPI process and phase-gate methodology (SAR/PDR/CDR or equivalent)
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• Experience with robotics, UAVs, embedded systems, or connected hardware development
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• Experience managing programs where engineering resources are shared across multiple products or ventures
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Why Alert Venture Foundry

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If you want to own the operating system behind how a robotics startup studio ships hardware on time, we encourage you to apply.

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Alert Venture Foundry is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity across all dimensions. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.