Senior Manager, AI Build, the^delta Prize

The/Nudge Institute; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 1,800,000 - 3,000,000; Full time

Job summary

the^delta Prize, a vertical of the The/Nudge Institute, seeks a Senior Manager to lead the AI platform within Samriddhi. You will translate strategic direction into roadmaps, collaborate with engineering and AI partners, and drive multilingual, voice-first capabilities for youth and MSME stakeholders.

Reporting to the Director/Associate Director, AI & Digital Platforms, you will design AI features, establish metrics, and ensure responsible AI practices while scaling impact across tier 3–4

Qualifications

• 8–12 years of product/tech experience
• Hands-on with LLMs and AI features
• Experience with user research and analytics-led product iteration
• Experience managing external partners
• Willingness to travel to tier 3–4 geographies
• Comfortable in a fast-paced startup environment
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

Responsibilities

• Own day-to-day product delivery of the AI platform
• Work with engineering and AI partners to define requirements and timelines
• Lead design/build/evaluation of AI features including multilingual/voice-first
• Conduct structured user research and translate findings into product decisions
• Conduct landscape scans of competing platforms and form build/buy/partner recommendations
• Define integrations with government and ecosystem digital infrastructure
• Set up analytics and report on product metrics
• Establish Responsible AI practices for features shipped
• Onboard platform partners and maintain relationships
• Interface with Challenges/Convening & Ecosystem, marketing, analytics, and donor relations
• Mentor the Senior Associate on the platform team

Skills

Product judgement

AI/LLM fluency

Stakeholder mgmt

First principles thinking

Ambiguity tolerance

Travel willingness

Startup experience

Job description

Senior Manager, AI Build, the^delta Prize

8-12 years

Full-Time

About the Team:

the^delta Prize is a platform to draw talent, capital, and public attention towards the most pressing developmental problems in India. the^delta Prize aims to guide markets where they are needed the most, inducing population-scale solutions and innovations that have disproportionate impact on stagnant livelihood opportunities and ecosystems for underserved segments. We research, design and conduct tech-based scale-up competitions to discover and innovate disruptive solutions, and pull in capital to solve the most complex problems in India, faster.

This role sits within Future Enterprises, the^delta Prize's vertical dedicated to India's MSME sector, and leads day-to-day product and delivery of the AI platform within Samriddhi (AI for MSME prosperity). Samriddhi runs through two approaches: Grand Challenges, and an AI-first platform that connects youth and jobseekers in tier 3–4 cities to career pathways, skilling, apprenticeships and jobs, while helping MSMEs access job-ready talent. The role reports to the Director / Associate Director, AI & Digital Platforms, and works closely with the Senior Managers leading Challenges and Convening & Ecosystem.

Who are we solving for?

Youth and jobseekers in tier 3–4 cities, whose access to career guidance, skilling and jobs is limited by language, geography and the thin guidance available to them. The platform also serves MSMEs that find it difficult to articulate their hiring requirements and reach job-ready talent.

What are we solving for?

India's youth-to-work transition is fragmented across three points. Skilling remains supply-led while MSME demand for talent goes largely unmet. Career guidance for tier 3–4 youth is thin, rarely personalised, and rarely available in the youth's own language or in a voice-first format. The existing landscape of job and skilling platforms is fragmented, with several credible players serving overlapping segments through incompatible systems, which makes duplication the main design risk.

The platform is designed to address these three points together, and to run on top of existing government-led skilling councils, job and skilling networks and education-employment infrastructure instead of building parallel rails. The ambition is to reach 10–12 million young people over three years.

Role and Responsibility:

What will you do?

• Own day-to-day product delivery of the AI platform, translating the Director's direction into roadmaps, requirements, sprint priorities and release plans
• Work hands-on with engineering and AI partners: write product requirements, review architecture and technical trade-offs, test builds, and hold partners to agreed timelines and quality
• Lead the design, build and evaluation of the platform's AI features, including LLM-based conversational and recommendation features, retrieval over structured and unstructured data, and multilingual and voice-first interaction, with prompt design, evaluation benchmarks and human-in-the-loop review
• Run structured user research with youth and MSME employers in tier 3–4 cities, and convert the findings into product decisions
• Lead the landscape scan of existing job and skilling platforms across function, technology used, UI/UX design intent and ownership model, and turn it into build, buy, partner or integrate recommendations
• Scope and manage integrations with government and ecosystem digital infrastructure, using open APIs and interoperable data standards
• Define product metrics (adoption, retention, completion, placement outcomes and AI response quality), set up analytics, and report on them regularly
• Establish Responsible AI practices for every AI feature shipped, covering transparency, fairness testing, safety and escalation processes, and data privacy and consent
• Onboard platform partners across technology, skilling, employers and institutions, and maintain those relationships through continuous engagement
• Interface with the Challenges and Convening & Ecosystem teams, and with marketing, analytics, impact and donor relations, on areas critical to the platform's success
• Manage and mentor the Senior Associate on the platform team

(The actual role might evolve slightly based on your relevant experience and the overlap between organisational requirements and your interests.)

Who are we looking for in this role?

• Strong product judgement: ability to turn ambiguous problems into clear requirements and priorities
• Working fluency in AI and LLM systems, enough to make and challenge consequential technical decisions with engineering partners
• Ability to evaluate AI quality in a structured way, including in Indian languages and voice-first settings
• Exceptional stakeholder and relationship management skills across technology partners, government bodies and institutions
• Ability to think in first principles and understand second- and third-order change or impact
• Comfort managing flux and change in a platform that will evolve as it is built
• Bias for action, paired with humility

• 8–12 years of experience in product, technology or platform roles in high‑performing set‑ups, including direct ownership of at least one shipped digital product used at scale
• Hands‑on experience building with LLMs: prompt engineering, retrieval‑augmented generation, evaluation and monitoring of model outputs, and human‑in‑the‑loop workflows
• Working understanding of APIs, data pipelines and platform architecture, sufficient to review technical decisions made by engineering partners
• Experience managing external engineering or AI partners, without relying on a large in‑house technology team
• Experience with user research and analytics‑led product iteration
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, and proficiency in documentation and presentation tools
• Willingness to travel to pilot locations in tier 3–4 geographies
• Willingness to work in a fast‑paced, start‑up environment
• Comfort with some degree of ambiguity in the absence of perfect information

Would be great if you have:

• Experience building multilingual, voice‑first or low‑bandwidth products for Indian languages
• Experience with DPI/DPGs, open or interoperable platforms, or government digital systems
• Experience in edtech, skilling, jobs, livelihoods or MSME‑facing products
• Familiarity with Responsible AI frameworks and practices
• Work experience in a tech start‑up
• Prior experience in the social or impact sector
• Interest in developmental economics and India's youth employment and MSME landscape

We aspire to be an inclusive and diverse organisation and encourage qualified individuals, irrespective of their religion, caste, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, or any other dimension of identity, to apply.