Senior Program Manager - Data Operations

Butlr; Burlingame (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

World-class team with low ego

Flexible work environment

Comprehensive health benefits package

Retirement savings plan

Flexible time off

Professional development opportunities

Job summary

Butlr is seeking a hands-on Technical Project/Program Manager to own data center projects end to end. You will connect with partner and customer teams, build a plan, drive workstreams to live deployment, and remain as the customer success lead after launch.

You will coordinate across hardware, software, and services, ensuring on-time delivery and successful pilots. The role requires travel and strong cross-functional collaboration.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in technical project or program management, solutions delivery, or technical customer success.
• Experience across the data center ecosystem (power, cooling, racks, GPU/AI server platforms).
• Proven track record delivering hardware and software deployments with external partners and customers.
• Sufficient depth to coordinate engineers on integrations, APIs, and data flows.
• Strong ownership and accountability; able to drive to results.
• Clear, organized communication with engineers and executives.
• Willingness to travel at least 30%, including international travel.
• Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, or experience with partners in Taiwan/China.

Responsibilities

• Kick off projects with all stakeholders; set roles, timelines, and communication plans.
• Turn deals into detailed project plans with milestones and owners; track progress weekly.
• Oversee pilots and internal testing with engineering; translate results into deployment decisions.
• Coordinate engineering teams for integrations and data flows to go live on schedule.
• Confirm pre-launch readiness with Product; ensure configurations, docs, and support are ready.
• Manage hardware logistics with Supply Chain to config, test, quality-check, and ship POC units.
• Handle site access, installation schedules, customer requirements, and status reporting.
• After launch, serve as technical customer success lead; monitor health and adoption; resolve issues.
• Grow accounts by identifying upsell opportunities and transitioning successful POCs to contracts.

Skills

Technical PM

Data center

Hardware deployments

APIs & integrations

Ownership

Cross-functional

Mandarin Chinese

Job description

About Us

Butlr is on a mission to make the built environment people-aware. We live and work in houses and buildings that aren't aware of their inhabitants. We heat and cool spaces when no one is in them, clean areas that haven't been used, and lease office space that no one is using. Our vision is to enable smarter buildings and increase the quality of life while respecting privacy.

Spun out of the MIT Media Lab in 2019 with offices in Silicon Valley and Boston, Butlr was founded by Forbes 30 Under 30 entrepreneurs Honghao Deng and Jiani Zeng. Butlr pioneers in space occupancy and people sensing technologies and delivers rich spatial intelligence for workplace, retail, and healthcare use cases. We help customers revolutionize the way they operate in human-centric environments, ensuring efficiency and productivity at every step.

We are backed by top venture capital institutions and strategic investors such as Foundry Group, Tiger Global, Qualcomm Ventures, E14 Fund, and Carrier, among others. We are recognized as one of Fast Company's "2024 Most Innovative Companies", Inc. Magazine's "2023 Best in Business'' (AI & Data Category), World Economic Forum's Top Innovator in YES San Francisco Challenge, among other awards/recognitions. We operate with top occupiers, landlords, care facilities, and service providers in North America, Europe, and Asia. We pride ourselves in providing exceptional solutions and service to numerous prestigious customers, tech giants, and world's largest conglomerates and brands.

We are hiring talented and passionate people to join our team to help us continue our rapid growth.

The Role

You'll own our data center projects end to end. You'll connect Butlr with partner and customer teams, build the plan, and drive every workstream until the system is live and the customer is ready to expand. After launch, you'll stay on as the customer's technical success lead. This is a hands-on role for someone who gets things done and follows up until they are done.

What You'll Do

• Kick off fast: Bring Butlr, partner, and customer teams together quickly. Set roles, timelines, and how teams communicate from day one.
• Build and run the plan: Turn deal commitments into a detailed project plan with milestones, dependencies, and owners. Track the plan every week, raise risks early, and push to resolve blockers.
• Oversee pilots and internal testing: Own pilot and validation testing in live data center environments, partnering with engineering to plan tests, deploy and monitor equipment, and translate results into product and deployment decisions.
• Drive technical integration: Coordinate engineering teams on both sides so integrations and data flows go live on schedule.
• Own pre-launch readiness: Work with Product to confirm that features, configurations, documentation, and support are ready before go-live.
• Manage hardware logistics: Work with Supply Chain and Logistics to make sure POC units are configured, fully tested, quality-checked, and shipped on time.
• Handle every detail: Site access, installation schedules, customer requirements, and status reporting for internal leaders and external stakeholders.
• Own the customer after launch: Serve as the technical customer success lead. Monitor system health and customer adoption, run regular check-ins, and resolve issues quickly.
• Grow the account: Turn successful POCs into long-term contracts. Spot expansion and upsell opportunities and bring them to Sales.
• Make it repeatable: Capture lessons learned and build a playbook so each new POC runs faster than the last.
• Coordinate across sites and borders: Drive deployments across US and international sites, partner with our Shenzhen team, and manage customs and import logistics so equipment arrives on time.

What You Bring

• 5+ years of experience in technical project or program management, solutions delivery, or technical customer success.
• Experience across the data center ecosystem, including critical infrastructure (power, cooling, racks), GPU/AI server platforms, and related equipment and services.
• A track record of delivering hardware and software deployments across multiple teams, with external partners and customers involved.
• Enough technical depth to coordinate engineers on integrations, APIs, and data flows. You don't need to write the code, but you need to understand it.
• A strong sense of ownership. You hold people accountable, including people who don't report to you, and you're comfortable pushing to get things done.
• Clear, organized communication with engineers and executives alike.
• Ability to travel at least 30% of the time, including internationally, to customer sites, partner facilities, and data center deployments.
• Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and/or experience working with partners in Taiwan or China.

Nice to Have

• Experience with IoT, sensors, digital twins, or building and facility technology.
• Experience in a startup or another fast-moving environment.

Why working at Butlr is great!

We are building a culture that puts people first! We're a team of engaging, motivated, and intelligent problem-solvers who are committed to making an impact. We believe in fostering a culture of healthy work-life balance, and we encourage an inviting, collaborative, fun work environment.

Benefits

• World-class team with low ego
• A work environment that is flexible
• Comprehensive health benefits package
• Retirement savings plan
• Flexible time off
• Professional development opportunities

Disclaimers

Butlr provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with