Project Manager

California-Institute-of-Technology; Pasadena (CA); On-site; USD 89,000 - 101,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Retirement savings plan

Paid time off

Job summary

Caltech in Pasadena seeks a Project Manager to run ELECTRA, a national AI-enabled lab network funded by NSF. You will own the budget, compliance, and reporting, and serve as the connective tissue between the ELECTRA team, NSF, other PCL Nodes, and Caltech leadership.

The role requires coordinating cross-institution partners, maintaining subaward agreements, and leading governance with risk analyses and milestones.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and 2+ years managing complex federally funded research programs or equivalent experience.
• Experience managing multi-million-dollar awards with multiple institutional partners.
• Working knowledge of federal budget management, reporting, and compliance.
• Excellent written and oral communication, including drafting technical report content and preparing external presentations.
• Demonstrated independence coordinating scientists, engineers, administrators, and external partners.

Responsibilities

• Lead full life-cycle program operations for a multi-million-dollar, multi-institution award: budget tracking, timelines, deliverables, annual reviews and milestone progress, compliance and reporting across the entire PCL Node partnership.
• Serve as ELECTRA's primary liaison to the NSF program officer, other PCL Nodes, and the advisory board, presenting reports and briefings for NSF and leadership.
• Maintain inter-institutional collaboration and subaward agreements, keeping scope, budget, and data sharing aligned.
• Run program governance, including meeting cadence, risk analysis, and internal/external documentation, tracking dependencies across teams to keep milestones on schedule.
• Organize user recruitment, onboarding workshops, and outreach events, including to R2 universities and two-year colleges, and manage external communications and web presence.
• Support hiring, onboarding, and coordination of node personnel.
• Lead development of the post-award sustainability plan, including cost-recovery, industry engagement, follow-on funding, technology transfer and IP activity with institutional offices.

Skills

Budget management

NSF/NIH/DARPA program management

Stakeholder coordination

Technical writing

Cross-institution collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree

Advanced degree

Job description

Caltech is a world-renowned science and engineering institute that marshals some of the world's brightest minds and most innovative tools to address fundamental scientific questions. We thrive on finding and cultivating talented people who are passionate about what they do. Join us and be a part of the diverse Caltech community.

Job Summary

Caltech has just been awarded major National Science Foundation funding to build ELECTRA: a first-of-its-kind, AI-enabled automated laboratory for electron diffraction (MicroED) and structural elucidation that researchers anywhere in the country will be able to log in to and run real experiments on, over the cloud. ELECTRA is one node in a brand-new nationwide network of NSF Programmable Cloud Laboratories, and we are building the founding team from the ground up: a cross-disciplinary group of scientists and engineers from academia and industry who will turn this vision into a working national resource. The science this enables will ripple across chemistry, biology, and materials science, with real downstream applications in drug discovery, new materials, and medicine. Read more: https://www.nsf.gov/tip/updates/nsf-announces-400m-investment-new-national-network-ai.

As Project Manager, you will be the person who makes this ambitious, multi-institution program actually run: owning the budget, compliance, and reporting, and serving as the connective tissue between the ELECTRA team, NSF, other PCL Nodes, and Caltech leadership.

• Lead full life-cycle program operations for a multi-million-dollar, multi-institution award: budget tracking, timelines, deliverables, annual reviews and milestone progress, compliance (including research security and data policies), and NSF reporting across the entire PCL Node partnership.
• Serve as ELECTRA's primary liaison to the NSF program officer, other PCL Nodes, and the advisory board, representing the project in all outside activities and preparing reports, briefings, and presentations for NSF and institutional leadership.
• Maintain inter-institutional collaboration and subaward agreements, keeping scope, budget, and data sharing aligned.
• Run program governance, including meeting cadence, risk analysis, and internal and external documentation, and track dependencies across the automation, software, and instrument teams to keep milestones on schedule.
• Organize user recruitment, onboarding workshops, and outreach events (including to R2 universities, primarily undergraduate institutions, and two-year colleges), and manage external communications and web presence.
• Support hiring, onboarding, and coordination of node personnel.
• Lead development of the post-award sustainability plan, including cost-recovery models, industry engagement, follow-on funding, technology transfer and IP activity with institutional tech transfer offices, and external evaluation and reporting metrics.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and 2+ years managing complex, federally funded research programs or equivalent experience.
• Experience managing NSF, NIH, DARPA, or comparable multi-component awards with multi-million-dollar budgets and multiple institutional partners.
• Working knowledge of federal budget management, reporting, and compliance.
• Excellent written and oral communication, including drafting technical report content and preparing external presentations.
• Demonstrated independence coordinating scientists, engineers, administrators, and external partners.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree in a scientific or technical field, with enough familiarity with laboratory automation, structural sciences, chemistry, materials, or biotechnology to engage substantively with the science.
• Experience running scientific workshops or building user communities.
• Shared user facility or core facility operations, including cost recovery and rate setting.
• Technology transfer, intellectual property, or industry partnership experience.
• Certified Research Administrator credential, or experience with Research.gov or comparable research administration systems, and with external program evaluation and metrics frameworks.

Required Documents

• Resume

Hiring Range

$89,000 - $100,900 Per Year
The salary of the finalist(s) selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to, internal equity, experience, education, specialty and training.
As one of the largest employers in Pasadena, CA, Caltech is committed to providing comprehensive benefits to eligible employees and their eligible dependents. Our benefits package includes competitive compensation, health, dental, and vision insurance, retirement savings plans, generous paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick time, parental leave, bereavement, etc), tuition reimbursement, and more. Non-benefit eligible employees will have access to some benefits such as onsite counseling and sick time. Learn more about our benefits and staff perks .

EEO Statement

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
Caltech is a VEVRAA Federal Contractor.

Caltech complies with the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). We consider reasonable accommodation measures that may be necessary for eligible applicants and employees to perform the essential functions of a position.

If you would like to request an accommodation to complete this application, interview, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please contact Caltech Recruiting at [e-mail] .

Additionally, if you do not meet the basic qualifications of a role but believe you can perform the essential functions of the job with reasonable accommodation, please reach out to Caltech Recruiting at [e-mail] .