Senior Technical Program Lead - AI Software Engineering (US)

Braintrust; United States; Remote; USD 105,000 - 149,000; Part time

Job summary

Braintrust is seeking a Senior Technical Program Lead - AI Software Engineering for a remote, three-month contract. You will lead delivery across large software-engineering programs, coordinating distributed engineers and defining concrete task specifications aligned with AI research goals.

You will review code, understand tests, and use data to improve how technical work gets done, with hands-on involvement and leadership responsibilities across teams.

Qualifications

• Leadership of large software-engineering programs with distributed teams.
• Experience with AI software delivery and PM practices.
• Strong metrics-driven delivery improvement.

Responsibilities

• Own delivery across scope, schedules, quality, throughput and cost.
• Build workflows for coding datasets, repository tasks, AI-agent trajectories, RL environments, benchmarks and evaluations.
• Improve instructions, review processes, incentives and capacity planning to resolve bottlenecks.
• Partner with talent teams to define contributor needs, assess engineers and support onboarding.
• Build team-lead and reviewer structures for distributed programs with hundreds of contributors.
• Analyze quality trends and recurring errors, address underlying causes.
• Serve as a key customer contact, communicating progress, risks and recovery plans.
• Use Python, SQL or similar tools to automate quality sampling, defect analysis and reporting.
• Turn workflows into reusable playbooks and mentor other leads.

Skills

Program leadership

Distributed teams

Data-driven

Stakeholder comms

Code reviews

Job description

• Rate: $92/hr
• Hours: 40 hours / week
• Experience: 5 - 10 years
• Location: Bangladesh | Brazil | Colombia + 8 more

Help lead the software-engineering programs behind advanced AI systems. In this role, you will translate research goals into reliable delivery, coordinating distributed engineers and improving the quality, speed and consistency of their work.

This is a program leadership role with a hands-on technical component. You should be comfortable reviewing code, understanding tests and using data to improve how technical work gets done.

What you will do

• Own delivery across scope, schedules, quality, throughput, contributor performance and cost.
• Build workflows for coding datasets, repository-level tasks, AI-agent trajectories, reinforcement-learning environments, benchmarks and technical evaluations.
• Improve instructions, review processes, incentives and capacity planning to resolve delivery bottlenecks.
• Partner with talent teams to define contributor needs, assess engineers and support onboarding, training and ramp-up.
• Build team-lead and reviewer structures for distributed programs involving hundreds of contributors.
• Analyze quality trends and recurring errors, then address their underlying causes.
• Serve as a key customer contact, communicating progress, risks and recovery plans while translating research objectives into practical task specifications.
• Use Python, SQL or similar tools to automate quality sampling, defect analysis and operational reporting.
• Turn effective workflows into reusable playbooks and mentor other program leads.

What you bring

• Experience leading complex programs involving multiple stakeholders in software engineering, technical program management, consulting, finance, startups, operations or a comparable environment.
• Experience managing distributed teams, contributor networks, marketplaces or large-scale technical operations.
• Strong analytical judgment and a track record of defining useful metrics and improving delivery performance.
• Clear customer-facing communication, including managing expectations, explaining risks and building working relationships.
• The ability to read and review code, understand test suites and independently assess technical work in languages such as Python, TypeScript, Java or Go.

Schedule and selection

• Remote, three-month contract with an immediate start targeted.
• At least eight hours per day and 40 hours per week, including four hours of overlap with Pacific working hours.
• The selection process includes an AI interview and a delivery interview.

Company: Senior Technical Program Lead - AI Software Engineering (US)
Location: Management
United States