Technical Program Management

Chalk; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

15 company holidays

15 days of PTO

Lunch and dinner provided daily

Snacks and drinks in the office

Uber/Lyft home after late nights

Job summary

Chalk is building a data platform powering ML applications, with a fast surface engine and privacy-conscious compute. We seek our first Technical Program Manager to coordinate multi-team launches and scale our program culture.

You’ll partner with founders, VP of Product, and engineering leads to implement programs, processes, and governance. This role is office-based five days a week with flexible handling for conflicts.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience, including 6+ years of technical program management experience.
• Proven track record shipping complex, multi-team technical programs.
• Strong technical depth to follow architecture discussions and ML systems.
• Excellent written and verbal communication with engineers and executives.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and building structure.
• Experience as a software engineer or hands-on technical role.
• Experience launching developer-facing platforms, APIs, or ML/data infrastructure.
• Experience as the first TPM at a startup.
• Familiarity with data pipelines, analytics, serving, and Kubernetes in customer VPCs.
• Languages: Python, SQL, Rust, and Go.

Responsibilities

• Drive Chalk’s largest cross-functional programs end to end with independence.
• Build program management systems, processes, and culture across teams.
• Elevate execution capability of the engineering teams around you.
• Own timelines, dependencies, and risks for major platform initiatives.
• Run launch readiness for new products, coordinating across docs, marketing, and customer teams.
• Provide visibility into program health, blockers, and outcomes to founders and leads.
• Manage sequencing, push back on shipping when needed, and focus priorities.
• Participate in product/engineering design and identify risks in strategy and architecture.
• Unblock teams by resolving conflicts and keeping decisions moving.

Skills

Technical Program Management

Program management

Communication

Ambiguity management

Software engineering

Developer platforms

Startup experience

Data pipelines

Python

SQL

Rust

Go

Kubernetes

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent

Tools

Kubernetes

Job description

Chalk is building the data platform that powers the future of machine learning applications. We tear down complexity, latency, and scale barriers that have traditionally constrained ML capabilities. Our platform combines Rust-speed performance with elegant tools that developers love to use. Leading companies depend on Chalk for everything from stopping fraudulent credit card swipes, verifying identities, and maximizing clean energy capture. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis.

About the role

We are hiring our first Technical Program Manager to drive execution across Chalk's most important initiatives. Chalk's surface area is growing quickly: the Chalk Context Engine serves features to models and agents in single-digit milliseconds, and Chalk Compute runs models and agents securely inside our customers' own clouds. Every launch spans engineering, product, docs, and go-to-market, and we need someone who keeps all of it moving.

You’ll work directly with our founders, VP of Product, and engineering leads to build and run our program management systems, processes, and culture. We want to move fast, and any process that slows us down should be there because it leads to better decisions and products.

We’re in the office 5 days a week. When unavoidable conflicts come up, we’re flexible. This is not a hybrid role.

What you will do

• Drive Chalk's largest cross-functional programs end to end, including critical product launches, with complete independence
• Build the program management systems, processes, and culture that change how teams think, decide, collaborate, measure progress, and deliver
• Elevate the execution capability of the engineering teams around you
• Own timelines, dependencies, and risks for major platform initiatives — surface tradeoffs early and drive them to decisions
• Run launch readiness for new products and capabilities, coordinating engineering delivery with docs, marketing, and customer-facing teams
• Give founders and engineering leads clear visibility into program health, blockers, and outcomes
• Influence and, where necessary, push back on leads and execs: force sequencing tradeoffs, tell us when we're not ready to ship, and help us focus by saying no to more things
• Participate actively in product and engineering design, identifying risks and opportunities in technical strategy, architecture, and how we structure the engineering org
• Unblock teams: chase down dependencies, resolve conflicts, and keep decisions moving

What we're looking for

• 10+ years of experience, including 6+ years of technical program management experience
• Track record of shipping complex, multi-team technical programs from concept to launch
• Strong technical depth: you can follow architecture discussions, pressure-test engineering plans, and understand how data infrastructure and ML systems fit together
• Crisp written and verbal communication: your program proposals, reviews, and decision/tradeoff docs create clarity and get buy-in from engineers and execs alike
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity; you build structure where none exists
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent
• Prior experience as a software engineer or in another hands‑on technical role
• Experience launching developer-facing platforms, APIs, or ML/data infrastructure
• Experience as the first TPM or program hire at a startup
• Familiarity with some of the systems we build and run:
• Data: streaming and batch feature pipelines, data warehousing, analytics, BI
• Serving and infrastructure: single-digit-millisecond online serving, serverless compute, and Kubernetes deployments inside customer VPCs (“Bring Your Own Cloud” deployments)
• AI: training, fine-tuning, serving, and deploying models, plus agentic applications
• Languages: Python, SQL, Rust, and Go

Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance

15 company holidays each year

15 days of personal time off each year

Daily lunch and dinner on Chalk

Office is fully-stocked with drinks and snacks to fuel your work day.

Staying late? Dinner is on us

Staying even later? Grab an Uber / Lyft home on Chalk

Compensation

Chalk offers early team members a generous salary + equity package based on experience and competitive benefits.

Actual compensation awarded to successful candidates will be based on several factors, including but not limited to: market, location, scope of the position and individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process.

Our comprehensive total package plays a major role in how we recognize individuals for the impact they will have on Chalk’s growth and us achieving our goals.

Inclusivity

Chalk is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and inclusion and provide reasonable accommodations to anyone in need of individualized support.