Principal Technical Program Manager

Hayden AI Technologies, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Hayden AI Technologies, Inc. is seeking a Principal Technical Program Manager to own cross-functional visibility and delivery across its engineering and business portfolio.

You will work directly with executive leadership and business partners across Engineering, Growth, Finance, and Operations to translate competing commitments into a coherent, executable plan, surfacing risks when capacity and demand diverge.

Qualifications

• B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in an engineering discipline.
• 12+ years in Technical Program Management, Engineering Program Management, or a related role
• Demonstrated track record managing a portfolio of concurrent, cross-functional programs in a fast-moving environment
• Experience navigating business-engineering tension: translating contracts, revenue commitments, or customer obligations into engineering capacity and sequencing decisions
• Technical fluency across multiple domains — enough to engage credibly with hardware, embedded, cloud, and AI engineering teams without domain specialists present
• Strong executive communication skills: structured, direct, and able to distill complex program status into clear decisions

Responsibilities

• Portfolio Governance: Own the company-level program portfolio — maintaining a single source of truth for commitments, capacity, dependencies, and status across all active lines of work.
• Business-Engineering Translation: Serve as the primary interface between executive leadership and engineering teams, translating business commitments into engineering capacity plans and surfacing tradeoffs.
• Executive Reporting: Design and maintain dashboards, cadences, and reporting frameworks that give senior leadership clear visibility into portfolio health.
• Capacity Planning & Demand Management: Partner with engineering leads to maintain a real-time view of capacity vs. demand and drive prioritization decisions.
• Cross-Functional Program Delivery: Drive end-to-end delivery of strategic programs spanning multiple engineering pillars and business functions.

Skills

Portfolio governance

Business-engineering translation

Executive reporting

Capacity planning & demand management

Cross-functional program delivery

Technical fluency across domains

Education

B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in an engineering discipline

Job description

About Us

At Hayden AI, we are on a mission to harness the power of computer vision to transform the way transit systems and other government agencies address real-world challenges.

From bus lane and bus stop enforcement to transportation optimization technologies and beyond, our innovative mobile perception system empowers our clients to accelerate transit, enhance street safety, and drive toward a sustainable future.

What the job involves

The Principal Technical Program Manager will own cross-functional visibility and delivery accountability across Hayden’s full engineering and business portfolio. Working directly with executive leadership and business partners across Engineering, Growth, Finance, and Operations, this role translates competing business commitments into a coherent, executable plan, holding the line when capacity and demand diverge. They operate across the full technical stack: hardware, embedded software, edge AI, cloud, computer vision, fleet systems, and government deployment - fluent enough in each domain to surface the right risks and drive the right conversations.

Responsibilities:

• Portfolio Governance: Own the company-level program portfolio — maintaining a single source of truth for commitments, capacity, dependencies, and status across all active lines of work.
• Business-Engineering Translation: Serve as the primary interface between executive leadership and engineering teams, translating business commitments (contracts, growth targets, customer deployments) into engineering capacity plans and surfacing tradeoffs before they become misses.
• Executive Reporting: Design and maintain the dashboards, cadences, and reporting frameworks that give the senior leadership clear, accurate visibility into portfolio health without noise.
• Capacity Planning & Demand Management: Partner with engineering leads across Hardware, Perception, Platform/Cloud, and Eng Ops to maintain a real-time view of capacity versus committed demand, and drive prioritization decisions when they conflict.
• Cross-Functional Program Delivery: Drive end-to-end delivery of strategic programs that span multiple engineering pillars and business functions, including customer-facing deployments, new product launches, and operational scaling initiatives.

Required Qualifications:

• B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in an engineering discipline
• 12+ years in Technical Program Management, Engineering Program Management, or a related role
• Demonstrated track record managing a portfolio of concurrent, cross-functional programs in a fast-moving environment
• Experience navigating business-engineering tension: translating contracts, revenue commitments, or customer obligations into engineering capacity and sequencing decisions
• Technical fluency across multiple domains — enough to engage credibly with hardware, embedded, cloud, and AI engineering teams without domain specialists present
• Strong executive communication skills: structured, direct, and able to distill complex program status into clear decisions

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with on-vehicle, edge-deployed, or ruggedized systems (hardware, embedded, edge AI)
• Background in computer vision, autonomous systems, robotics, or AI/ML programs
• Experience delivering technology to government or municipal clients (procurement cycles, compliance requirements, deployment constraints)
• Familiarity with fleet management, secure transaction systems, or sensor hardware platforms
• Experience in a high-growth startup or scale-up environment where process didn’t exist before you built it