Senior Technical Program Manager, Robotics

Lila Sciences; Cambridge (MA); On-site; USD 192,000 - 238,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity (early-stage)

Medical/dental/vision benefits

Relocation assistance

Job summary

Lila Sciences in Cambridge, MA is seeking a Senior Technical Program Manager for Robotics to own Physical AI platform programs across multiple engineering teams. You will translate the platform roadmap into a sequenced plan, own reliability and scalability initiatives, and drive capacity planning and readiness.

This role emphasizes influence without authority, requiring rigorous judgment and clear communication with both engineers and stakeholders.

Qualifications

• 4–8 years of technical program management for platform or infrastructure software across multiple teams.
• Experience managing cross-team dependencies, critical paths, and risk registers on multi-quarter programs.
• Hands‑on with SLOs, launch readiness, capacity planning, or release/incident processes.
• Depth to engage backend, platform/SRE, and QA engineers on trade-offs.
• Proven ability to drive delivery and hard decisions across non‑managed teams.
• Ability to translate technical details to non‑technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Drive the Physical AI Platform roadmap with sequenced milestones and owners.
• Coordinate cross-team dependencies and surface blockers to unblock work.
• Own reliability and scalability programs including SLOs, launch readiness, and capacity planning.
• Track risk end-to-end with a living risk register and ensure incident follow‑through to closure.
• Align stakeholders on scope and trade-offs to keep platform teams informed.
• Coordinate releases to ensure predictable launches and deployment processes.
• Raise operational rigor with rituals like status updates, escalation paths, and decision records.

Skills

Platform program management

Dependency & risk management

Reliability & scalability

Technical credibility

Influence without authority

Clear communication

Job description

Senior Technical Program Manager, Robotics

Cambridge, MA USA

You will be the program owner for Physical AI — the shared infrastructure our autonomous labs run on. Working across multiple engineering teams, you'll turn the platform roadmap into a sequenced, dependency-aware plan, own the reliability and scalability programs — SLOs, launch readiness, capacity planning — and be the clear line to the teams who depend on the platform. This is an influence-without-authority role: your leverage comes from rigor, judgment, and trust.

What You’ll Be Building

• Drive the Physical AI Platform roadmap: sequence delivery across teams, with clear milestones and owners.
• Coordinate cross-team dependencies: map the critical path, surface blockers, and unblock work before it slips.
• Own reliability & scalability programs: stand up SLOs, launch-readiness reviews, and capacity planning.
• Track risk end to end: maintain a living risk register and drive incident follow-through to closure.
• Align stakeholders: keep the teams who depend on the platform current on scope and trade-offs.
• Coordinate releases: run release and change coordination so launches are predictable.
• Raise operational rigor: establish the rituals — status, escalation paths, decision records — that keep delivery honest.

What You’ll Need to Succeed

• Platform program management: 4–8 years of technical program management for platform or infrastructure software across multiple teams.
• Dependency & risk mastery: managing cross-team dependencies, critical paths, and risk registers on multi-quarter programs.
• Reliability fluency: hands‑on with SLOs, launch readiness, capacity planning, or release/incident processes.
• Technical credibility: enough depth to engage backend, platform/SRE, and QA engineers on real trade-offs.
• Influence without authority: proven ability to drive delivery and hard decisions across teams you don’t manage.
• Clear communication: you translate fluidly between engineers and non‑technical stakeholders.

Bonus Points For

• Systems engineering & regulated‑industry programs: a systems‑thinking background and program experience in regulated, safety‑critical domains — aerospace, manufacturing, or healthcare/life sciences. Exposure to validation/V&V regimes (GAMP 5 / FDA CSA, DO-178C) or enterprise‑to‑shop‑floor integration (ISA-95) a plus.
• Scientific or lab‑automation context: robotics, hardware‑in‑the‑loop, or lab/scientific computing environments.
• SRE‑adjacent depth: observability, on‑call, and incident management practice.

Compensation

We offer competitive base compensation with bonus potential and generous early‑stage equity. Your final offer will reflect your background, expertise, and expected impact.

U.S. Benefits.

Full‑time U.S. employees receive a comprehensive benefits program including medical, dental, and vision coverage; employer‑paid life and disability insurance; flexible time off with generous company wide holidays; paid parental leave; an educational assistance program; commuter benefits, including bike share memberships for office based employees; and a company subsidized lunch program.

International Benefits.

Full‑time employees outside the U.S. receive a comprehensive benefits program tailored to their region. USD salary ranges apply only to U.S.-based positions; international salaries are set to local market.

Expected Base Salary Range

$192,000 - $238,000 USD

About LILA

Lila Sciences is building Scientific Superintelligence™ to solve humankind's greatest challenges. We believe science is the most inspiring frontier for AI. Rather than hard‑coding expert knowledge into tools, LILA builds systems that can learn for themselves.

LILA combines advanced AI models with proprietary AI Science Factory™ instruments into an operating system for science that executes the entire scientific method autonomously, accelerating discovery at unprecedented speed, scale, and impact across medicine, materials, and energy. Learn more at www.lila.ai.

Guided by our core values of truth, trust, curiosity, grit, and velocity, we move with startup speed while tackling problems of historic importance. If this sounds like an environment you'd love to work in, even if you don't meet every qualification listed above, we encourage you to apply.

Lila Sciences iscommitted to equal employment opportunityregardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.

Information you provide during your application process will be handled in accordance with our Candidate Privacy Policy .