Physical AI Technical Program Manager (TPM)

Physical AI Technical Program Manager

Employer: Inabia Solutions & Consulting, Inc.
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Work Arrangement: Onsite, five days per week
Employment Type: Contract, W-2
Compensation: Competitive compensation
Work Authorization: U.S. Citizen or Green Card only

About the Role

Inabia Solutions & Consulting is seeking an experienced Physical AI Technical Program Manager to support the development of a new Physical AI team in Boston.

Building a Physical AI program from the ground up involves interconnected engineering workstreams, lab-readiness activities, hardware build cycles, validation campaigns, and technical dependencies. This role will provide the structure, technical insight, and program leadership required to keep those efforts aligned and moving forward.

This is not a traditional project coordination position. The Technical Program Manager must be comfortable participating in hardware design reviews, understanding complex engineering discussions, asking informed questions, and translating technical status into clear program decisions, risks, and priorities.

The right candidate will know how to create structure in an ambiguous environment, manage multiple technical workstreams, and hold teams accountable without adding unnecessary administrative overhead.

What You’ll Be Doing

Program Planning and Execution

• Own the integrated program plan for the Boston Physical AI team, including hardware builds, lab operations, validation campaigns, and engineering milestones.
• Build and maintain a current dependency map across onsite and remote engineering teams.
• Identify technical and schedule risks before they affect major milestones.
• Establish and manage program cadences, including sprint planning, milestone reviews, risk reviews, and cross-team meetings.
• Track action items, technical decisions, owners, deadlines, and commitments across workstreams.
• Hold teams accountable for deliverables and follow-through.
• Adjust program plans as technical requirements, schedules, and priorities change.

Risk and Decision Management

• Identify technical, schedule, resource, and dependency risks.
• Develop and drive practical mitigation plans instead of only reporting problems.
• Determine which decisions require leadership involvement and which should be resolved within the engineering teams.
• Establish clear escalation paths for unresolved risks and blockers.
• Build and maintain program dashboards that provide leadership with current visibility into milestones, risks, decisions, and dependencies.
• Reduce manual status collection by creating reliable reporting processes and tools.
• Facilitate structured tradeoff discussions when technical requirements, resources, or priorities conflict.
• Document decisions, owners, and expected outcomes.

Cross-Team Alignment

• Serve as the primary connection between onsite lab teams, engineering teams, remote contributors, and organizational stakeholders.
• Translate detailed engineering status into clear program-level updates.
• Communicate program progress, risks, blockers, and decisions to engineering leadership.
• Coordinate with supply chain, facilities, IT, partner engineering teams, and other external stakeholders.
• Resolve dependencies that fall outside the immediate Physical AI team.
• Manage new requests, scope changes, and shifting priorities while maintaining clarity about what is included in the approved program plan.

Process and Tooling

• Build practical program management processes designed for a fast-moving research and development environment.
• Establish enough structure to support accountability and execution without creating unnecessary administrative burden.
• Select and manage program-tracking tools such as Jira, Confluence, Asana, or comparable platforms.
• Drive consistent adoption of program tools and reporting standards.
• Create RACI frameworks for major workstreams to clarify ownership, decision authority, and accountability.
• Develop templates for status reporting, risk tracking, decision documentation, and milestone management.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.
• Seven or more years of technical program management experience.
• At least three years of experience managing programs involving hardware development, robotics, physical systems, or related technologies.
• Strong technical foundation with the ability to understand hardware build processes, engineering dependencies, and testing and validation workflows.
• Demonstrated experience managing complex programs with multiple concurrent technical workstreams.
• Experience operating in ambiguous, greenfield, or rapidly changing environments.
• Proven ability to build program-management processes, tools, reporting structures, and operating cadences from the ground up.
• Strong risk identification, mitigation planning, and escalation-management skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to produce clear status reports, risk registers, dependency maps, and decision documents.
• Experience working closely with engineering, lab, operations, and leadership teams.
• Ability to work onsite in Boston five days per week.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in Physical AI, robotics, autonomous systems, or advanced hardware research and development.
• Knowledge of hardware development lifecycles, including new product introduction, prototype builds, EVT, DVT, and PVT.
• Understanding of the dependencies, risks, and common failure points associated with hardware development.
• Experience adapting agile methodologies to hardware-development programs.
• Previous experience with a hyperscaler, advanced AI lab, robotics company, or high-growth technology organization.
• Experience coordinating supply chain, facilities, IT, and external engineering partners.
• Familiarity with hardware and software integration programs.

A Day in the Life

You may begin the day by reviewing the program dashboard and identifying open issues from a recent hardware build. A delayed component delivery has created an upstream dependency, so you update the risk register, assess the integration impact, and provide the engineering lead with possible mitigation options.

Later that morning, you lead a cross-team program review with the lab manager and technical lead. During the meeting, you facilitate a focused discussion between hardware and software teams concerning an unresolved interface specification. You drive the group toward a decision, document the outcome, and assign follow-up actions.

In the afternoon, you update the integrated program plan to account for a recent scope change, review milestone dependencies, and prepare the agenda for the next leadership review. Before ending the day, you respond to questions from a partner team in another time zone to prevent unresolved issues from becoming future blockers.

About Inabia Solutions & Consulting

Inabia Solutions & Consulting provides technology consulting, engineering, staffing, and workforce solutions to organizations managing complex business and technical initiatives. We connect clients with experienced professionals who can contribute quickly and deliver measurable results.

Inabia Solutions & Consulting is an equal opportunity employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other status protected by applicable law.