Program Lead

Reka AI; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

5 weeks paid leave

Comprehensive healthcare (vision &

Dental

Job summary

Claru, a Reka business line based in San Francisco, seeks a hands-on Program Manager to translate research needs into scalable programs.

You will own scope, timeline and economics, working with frontier labs, robotics teams and a dynamic supply team to build new contributor networks.

Qualifications

• Experience launching marketplace in a standing start within a new territory or vertical.
• Ability to automate processes before staffing or scaling teams.
• Proven track record turning research into deliverables with clear economics.

Responsibilities

• Turn open-ended research into a scoped program with timeline, scope and economics.
• Collaborate with frontier labs and robotics teams to deliver on commitments and maintain client confidence.
• Partner with supply team to recruit, activate and retain contributors and forge a working program.
• Tackle blockers across specs, tooling gaps, stakeholders or incentives.
• Act as product manager for the platform team, deciding what to build next based on field evidence.

Skills

Early-stage marketplace experience

AI-native

Structured problem solving

Numerate

Operational execution

Job description

Claru (a Reka business line) · San Francisco · Full-time

What you'll do

• Turn an open-ended research need into a program with a scope, a standard, a timeline and agreed economics — then own the number
• Work directly with frontier labs and robotics teams: turn a research problem into something deliverable, keep sophisticated buyers confident, and own the relationship from first call to delivery
• Partner with our supply team to build the supply side from nothing if needed: recruit, activate and retain the contributors and partner businesses a program needs, in industries and geographies where none exists
• Go at whichever blocker is in front of you: some days a spec or a tooling gap, other days a person, a partner or an incentive
• Act as product manager for the platform team: your field evidence decides what gets built next, and you speak for the contributor and the client in the roadmap
• Go where the work happens; physical operations are won by whoever showed up
• Build leverage as you go — agents, automation, playbooks — so the second program costs a fraction of the first and the tenth runs itself

A typical day

• There is no standard one, but a real day might run like this: you start on the programs already live — checking with the team that supply is filming, that yesterday's batches cleared the quality bar, and chasing the sites that have gone quiet. A buyer wants to change the spec mid-program, so you work out what that does to volume, timeline and cost, and get the new version agreed in writing. Then a first call with a lab you have not worked with before: understand what they are trying to train, and be straight about what we can produce and what we cannot.

What we're looking for

• Early-stage marketplace operating experience — required. You have had to get a flywheel turning from a standing start, in a new territory or a new vertical, where neither side existed yet and you had to build both. Every engagement here is that problem again
• AI-native — required. You spend more time with agents than with people, you automate a process before you staff it, and your answer to more volume is a better system rather than more headcount
• You have operated, not only advised. Former founders, high growth early stage startup hires, consulting, or business operations background is a strong plus and exactly the rigour we want
• Structured problem solving under pressure: first principles, then a plan a client and a team can both act on
• Numerate — you build the model, find where the economics break, and argue for the change
• Credible with a research lead and with a shift supervisor alike

Bonus: exposure to AI labs or training data pipelines

Reka's Mission

Claru is a part of Reka (VC backed by NVIDIA). Reka's mission is to build useful multimodal artificial intelligence and use it to empower organisations and businesses. We are a globally distributed foundation model startup, headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Embracing a remote-first approach, our team brings together top talent from around the world. Our founding team, along with many of our team members, has contributed to many of the breakthroughs in AI over the past decade.

Reka was founded by researchers from Google DeepMind and FAIR, and ships Reka Vision, launched in July 2026, and Reka Edge, a 7B vision-language model. Reka's leadership includes the team behind Moonvalley's Marey, the first video model trained entirely on licensed data. Claru is Reka's data business, supplying the training data behind physical AI, embodied AI and world models.

Why Reka?

An Elite Team: Collaborate with top-tier engineers, researchers, operators from renowned organizations like Google DeepMind and Facebook AI Research (FAIR) and successful startups, driving innovation in cutting-edge AI technology.

Massive Market Opportunity: Be part of a rapidly growing industry poised to transform multiple sectors globally, offering the chance to make a significant impact.

Mission-Driven Environment: Work alongside a collaborative, mission-focused team dedicated to advancing AI for meaningful applications.

Inclusive and Open Culture: Thrive in an open and inclusive work environment that values diverse perspectives and fosters creativity.

Generous Benefits: Enjoy 5 weeks of paid leave to recharge, comprehensive healthcare benefits including vision and dental, and additional perks that support your well-being.