Senior Technical Program Manager

BREAKFAST is the world’s leading studio for kinetic, data-driven sculpture — physical artworks that respond to the world in real time. Seventeen years in, the work in front of us is the most ambitious it has ever been.

You'll be the operational heart of the studio — working across our mechanical and electrical engineers, software developers, and industrial designers to hold every project together from idea to install. The closest analogue is the program manager who runs point across a Tesla vehicle program: fluent enough in mechanical, electrical, firmware, and industrial design to talk every engineer's language, and good enough at holding a complex build together that nothing slips between the disciplines. You're the eye in the sky on every active project — seeing where it really stands and making sure no one gets lost in the trees. When the Artist or the Head of Engineering is travelling, the project keeps moving, because you're holding it.

The work is genuinely novel. Each piece is a one-of-a-kind machine — custom PCBs, motion-control systems with stepper motors, injection-molded parts, custom software and firmware, overseas manufacturing — that has to run flawlessly for a decade. You don't do the engineering, but you've been close enough to stand toe-to-toe with engineers in a review, challenge an approach when the cost or risk doesn't add up, and know when to pull the Head of Engineering or the Artist back in.

A role like this is rare. On a small team delivering some of the largest, most ambitious artworks on the planet, your impact is visible to everyone at the studio — and to the millions who see the finished work.

• Location: On-site at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, every day. This is an in-the-building, in-person role.
• Compensation: $180,000–$210,000 base, plus an annual performance-based bonus tied to studio results.
• Travel: ~15%, domestic and international, for site visits, factory trips, and installations.
• Reports to: Day-to-day partnership with the Head of Engineering and the Artist; the Managing Director owns comp and performance reviews.

• Day-to-day delivery with the engineering team — working across mech/EE/SW/ID, keeping every project on track, and surfacing risk before it lands. This is the heart of the job.
• Schedules, budgets, and priorities across a portfolio of concurrent commissions — owning each piece's critical path from first prototype through tooling, production, test, ship, and install.
• The triangle — most of your day with the Head of Engineering, the Artist pulled in for the design reviews that keep aesthetics, motion, feel, and sound on point, and either looped back the moment a decision needs them.
• Manufacturability — turning genuinely novel designs into something we can build, test, and repeat, and calling it when a beautiful design has to bend to what production can hold.
• Test strategy — defining what "properly tested" means for each piece, spec'ing the custom jigs that make it rigorous, and building the coming failures into the schedule.
• Pre-pitch development — when the studio scopes a new multi-million-dollar commission, pushing the team to lay out viable approaches, ballpark cost and timeline, line up structural engineers and vendors.
• The client relationship through install — calm, credible updates that translate studio reality into something the client can plan against, without losing honesty about where things stand.
• AI in your workflow — you already use it to make project management faster, and you push the studio to use it better.

• 8–12 years running complex physical builds — hardware involving motors, electronics, custom software/firmware, and overseas manufacturing.
• Cross-discipline fluency — PCB timelines with an EE, motor selection and tolerancing with an ME, firmware with a developer, materials and finish with an industrial designer. You don't do the design or implementation work, but engineers respect your judgment.
• Factory and vendor experience — you know what overseas lead times, injection-mold schedules, and PCB runs mean for a build, and you've negotiated with factories.
• Test-strategy chops for novel hardware, including spec'ing the custom tools that make a one-of-a-kind machine verifiable.
• Mastery of Asana (or a close equivalent) — you make the system reflect reality and get the team to use it.
• An eye for aesthetics — we're not a tech company; the tech serves the art, and you care about that distinction.
• Strong client-facing communication.
• On-site daily, with ~15% travel for installs and factory visits.

• A hands-on background in electrical, mechanical, or manufacturing engineering — even if you've since moved into managing it.
• A love of art, design, or architecture.
• Familiarity with the full production lifecycle — bid packages, vendor selection, factory acceptance testing, commissioning, turnover.
• You've prototyped or built your own tools (AI-assisted or otherwise) to make project management faster or sharper.

BREAKFAST is the artist name of Andrew Zolty — like KAWS or Banksy, the name is the work. Behind it is a small team of engineers, fabricators, and software developers building everything in-house at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Our work has landed at Rockefeller Center, Tiffany & Co., Harvard, the Fontainebleau Las Vegas, and 1 Hotel South Beach. BREAKFAST was an official artist of the 2024 Venice Biennale and built The Pearl — the world's largest kinetic sculpture, 53 feet tall, aboard Royal Caribbean's Icon of the Seas. In practice, the studio is closer to a research lab than a traditional art studio.

• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• An open vacation policy — take what you need, as long as goals are being met
• Summer Fridays
• Regular team activities and a studio culture worth showing up for