What are the responsibilities and job description for the Technical Program Manager, Robotics Data position at Scale AI, Inc.?
Scale's Robotics business unit is currently seeing historic levels of growth. As a Technical Program Manager (TPM) for Robotics Data, you will be the connective tissue across our most complex technical operations, driving initiatives that secure $XXM in new revenue.
This isn't a "sit back and watch" project management role. You will work with multiple project leads across a vast portfolio of robotics data projects, ensuring technical milestones are met, dependencies are de-risked, and stakeholders are aligned. You should be prepared to wear many hats - from debugging hardware rigs to architecting data pipelines - and be excited about intense, impactful work that leads to accelerated career progression.
You will:- Drive Multi-Project Outcomes: Serve as the primary driver for a portfolio of robotics projects, tracking milestones, deliverables, and dependencies to ensure on-time delivery for the world's leading AI researchers.
- Bridge the Technical-Operational Gap: Act as the central liaison between AI researchers, hardware engineers, and global operational teams to translate high-level research goals into executable data collection and annotation workflows.
- Architect Scalable Pipelines: Partner with engineering to design and optimize end-to-end data ingestion pipelines, ensuring they can handle the high-fidelity sensor data (video, logs, teleop) required for Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models.
- Manage Hardware & Logistics: Coordinate the setup, maintenance, and scaling of physical robotic platforms and data collection rigs across multiple sites.
- Enforce Data Quality & Governance: Define KPIs and Quality Assurance (QA) metrics to ensure datasets are high-fidelity, labeled correctly, and compliant with rigorous privacy and safety standards.
- Standardize for Scale: Develop and refine Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that allow us to scale collection and annotation efforts across global, distributed teams.
- Communicate with Precision: Provide regular, data-driven progress updates to Scale's executive team, utilizing SQL and dashboards to monitor performance and guide strategic pivots.
- Strong Technical Foundation: A degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, combined with a deep understanding of the AI/ML data lifecycle.
- 2-3 Years of TPM Experience: Proven track record of managing complex, cross-functional technical programs, ideally in robotics, hardware, or large-scale data operations.
- Hands-on Problem Solving Skills: A proactive approach to overcoming technical and logistical roadblocks in a fast-paced environment.
- Operational Grit: Experience "in the weeds" of operational challenges - you don't just identify bottlenecks; you build the solution to clear them.
- Entrepreneurial Mindset: You are comfortable with ambiguity and excited about building infrastructure from scratch in a fast-paced environment.
- SQL Proficiency: Ability to pull your own data and build your own tracking dashboards.
- Global Experience: Experience interacting with distributed teams or collection sites across different time zones.
- Robotics Domain Expertise: Familiarity with robotic hardware, sensor calibration, or the nuances of collecting data for Physical AI.
- AI/CV Knowledge: Familiarity with Computer Vision or Large Language Model (LLM) training requirements.
Compensation packages at Scale for eligible roles include base salary, equity, and benefits. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position, determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, interview performance, and relevant education or training. Scale employees in eligible roles are also granted equity based compensation, subject to Board of Director approval. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process, and confirm whether the hired role will be eligible for equity grant. You'll also receive benefits including, but not limited to: Comprehensive health, dental and vision coverage, retirement benefits, a learning and development stipend, and generous PTO. Additionally, this role may be eligible for additional benefits such as a commuter stipend.
PLEASE NOTE:Our policy requires a 90-day waiting period before reconsidering candidates for the same role. This allows us to ensure a fair and thorough evaluation of all applicants.
About Us:
At Scale, our mission is to develop reliable AI systems for the world's most important decisions. Our products provide the high-quality data and full-stack technologies that power the world's leading models, and help enterprises and governments build, deploy, and oversee AI applications that deliver real impact. We work closely with industry leaders like Meta, Cisco, DLA Piper, Mayo Clinic, Time Inc., the Government of Qatar, and U.S. government agencies including the Army and Air Force. We are expanding our team to accelerate the development of AI applications.
We believe that everyone should be able to bring their whole selves to work, which is why we are proud to be an inclusive and equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability status, gender identity or Veteran status.
We are committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with physical and mental disabilities. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation in the application or recruiting process due to a disability, please contact us at accommodations@scale.com. Please see the United States Department of Labor's Know Your Rights poster for additional information.
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We believe that everyone should be able to bring their whole selves to work, which is why we are proud to be an affirmative action employer and inclusive and equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability status, gender identity or Veteran status.