Founding Program Manager

Trident Search; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 198,000 - 242,000; Full time

Job summary

Trident Search in the Bay Area is seeking a Founding Program Manager to shape the operating rhythm for scaling a security/AI security-focused startup. This is the first Program Manager hire, owning cross-functional alignment across security researchers, GTM, customers, and the founding team.

You will orchestrate a biweekly release cycle for three live enterprise products, coordinate with 25 engineers, 8 security researchers, and a 20-person field organization, and ensure readiness for day-zero

Qualifications

• 5–10 years running cross-functional programs spanning engineering, product, and commercial teams.
• Security or AI security domain fluency and ability to hold technical conversations with researchers.
• Experience working across engineering and GTM functions; not just a single domain.
• Startup operating mindset with ability to build new functions from scratch.
• AI-native with practical use of AI tools in daily work.

Responsibilities

• Run operating rhythm across 25 engineers, 8 security researchers, and a 20-person field org.
• Own a biweekly release cycle across three live enterprise products.
• Ensure sales and SEs are briefed and ready on day one of every release.
• Pull customer intelligence into the roadmap.
• Surface blockers before they become execution problems.

Skills

Cross-functional programs

Security domain fluency

Engineering & GTM

Startup mindset

AI-native tooling

Job description

• Location: Bay Area, Hybrid 3 days a week
• Salary: Upto $220,000 base + potential equity

The company

Most enterprises have no idea what AI agents are running inside their walls.

They don't know what data those agents are touching, what they're doing with it, or whether any of it is sanctioned. The attack surface has expanded faster than any security team can track, and the tools built to handle it were designed for a different era.

The founders have been here before. When cloud computing arrived, enterprises had the exact same problem: new infrastructure, no visibility, no tooling, no standards.

This team built the products that changed that, and those products became the foundation for some of the largest exits in cybersecurity history... they're here to do it again.

They're building the security infrastructure that Fortune 500 enterprises and frontier AI labs actually need for the AI era.

This is the first Program Manager hire.

No function to inherit, no process to manage... you're establishing the operating rhythm for their next phase of scaling.

The Role: Founding Program Manager

Stakeholders span the full business: security researchers, GTM, customers, and the founding team.

This isn't a role where you sit with engineering and move tickets. The job is to hold the whole picture together across functions that don't always speak the same language.

You won't be updating Jira and sitting in standups. You'll be in the room where the research team is debating what gets built, and on the call where the field is telling you what's breaking out there.

• Run the operating rhythm across 25 engineers, 8 security researchers, and a 20-person field org.
• Own a biweekly release cycle across three live enterprise products.
• Make sure sales and SEs are briefed and ready on day one of every release.
• Pull customer intelligence into the roadmap.
• Surface blockers before they become execution problems.

What they're looking for

• 5-10 years running cross-functional programs. Programs that span engineering, product, and commercial teams with real accountability on your side.
• Security or AI security domain fluency. You don't need to be a researcher, but you need to be able to hold a technical conversation with one.
• Cross-functional range across engineering AND GTM. If your background is entirely on the engineering side and you've never worked closely with sales or SEs, this isn't the right fit.
• Startup operating mindset.They're post-product-market-fit but pre-scale. The person who joins builds the function. If you need structure to already exist, this isn't the right role.
• AI-native with judgment. You use AI tools in how you actually work, not as a talking point. And you have enough domain awareness to know what the company is doing and why it matters.

This probably isn't for you if...

• You need a defined scope to operate effectively
• You prefer inheriting a mature process over building one
• You're looking for a coordination role, not a delivery function
• You want a large team and established structure around you
• You're not genuinely excited by the intersection of AI and security