Technical Program Manager

We are looking for a Technical Program Manager to drive the execution of complex, cross-functional programs at Sakana AI. As we scale from a research lab to an enterprise AI company, the number of interdependent workstreams — research milestones, product launches, customer deployments, infrastructure buildouts — is growing rapidly. You will be the person who ensures these moving pieces come together on time, at quality, and without surprises.

In this role, you will manage program roadmaps that span research, engineering, product, and business teams. You will run weekly syncs, identify and mitigate risks before they become blockers, facilitate difficult trade-off decisions, and communicate progress to Sakana AI leadership with clarity and honesty. You will also define and improve the processes that help our teams coordinate effectively as the company grows.

What makes this role distinctive at Sakana AI is the nature of the programs you will manage. Research timelines are inherently uncertain — an evolutionary training run might converge in days or take weeks. Customer deployments span from cloud APIs to air-gapped government installations. You will need to build program management frameworks that embrace this uncertainty while still delivering predictable outcomes.

The ideal candidate has a technical background and can speak fluently with engineers about distributed systems and model architectures while also managing stakeholder expectations with executive leadership. You are highly organized, proactive about surfacing problems early, and skilled at driving alignment when smart people disagree.

Requirements:

• 5+ years of technical program management experience at technology companies
• Technical background: CS degree or equivalent engineering experience
• Experience managing ML/AI programs, infrastructure projects, or complex software platform initiatives
• Proven track record of delivering complex, multi-team programs on schedule
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, especially for executive-level status updates
• Experience with agile methodologies and program tracking tools (Jira, Linear, or equivalent)
• Ability to work effectively in a bilingual (English/Japanese) environment is a strong plus