Technical Program Manager

Clera; Oregon; Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 225,000; Full time

Job summary

Clera seeks a Technical Program Manager to lead complex data and evaluation programs for AI research teams. You will scope requirements, coordinate cross-functional teams, and ensure high-quality data for LLM and agent evaluation.

You will collaborate with research, platform, and marketplace teams, manage external vendors, and drive production pipelines, balancing speed and quality in a fast-paced startup environment.

Qualifications

• 3+ years owning complex technical programs in AI/ML or data operations.
• Experience as a Technical Program Manager at a startup translating ambiguity into executable plans.
• Strong quantitative and qualitative judgment for dataset quality.
• Experience improving data quality procedures and scaling delivery pipelines.
• Background supporting AI research teams with urgent, changing requirements.

Responsibilities

• Lead data and evaluation programs from scoping and requirements gathering through production, quality assurance, delivery, and retrospectives.
• Turn ambiguous technical requests into specifications with clear milestones, owners, dependencies, and acceptance criteria.
• Improve data quality processes using quantitative signals and qualitative review, including task coverage, difficulty, and reward distributions.
• Manage external vendors throughout delivery and scale reliable production pipelines.
• Improve workflows, documentation, automation, and cross-functional handoffs for data production and evaluation.
• Work with research, platform, and marketplace teams to turn findings into product improvements.

Skills

Program ownership

Technical PM experience

Vendor management

Data quality assessment

Workflow automation

Job description

About the RoleOwn

complex data and evaluation programs for AI research teams and internal partners. This role brings together technical program management, data operations, and vendor coordination to deliver high-quality data that improves LLM and agent evaluation.

What You'll Do

• Lead data and evaluation programs from scoping and requirements gathering through production, quality assurance, delivery, and retrospectives.
• Turn ambiguous technical requests into specifications with clear milestones, owners, dependencies, and acceptance criteria.
• Improve data quality processes using quantitative signals and qualitative review, including task coverage, difficulty, and reward distributions.
• Manage external vendors throughout delivery and scale reliable production pipelines.
• Improve workflows, documentation, automation, and cross-functional handoffs for data production and evaluation.
• Work with research, platform, and marketplace teams to turn findings into product improvements.

What We’re Looking For

• At least 3 years of experience owning complex technical programs in AI/ML, data operations, support engineering, applied research, forward-deployed engineering, or a related cross-functional environment.
• Experience as a Technical Program Manager or Strategic Program Lead at a startup, translating ambiguity into executable plans and maintaining momentum as requirements change.
• Strong quantitative and qualitative judgment, with the ability to assess dataset quality using aggregate metrics and individual examples.
• Experience improving data quality procedures, managing vendors, scaling delivery pipelines, and documenting or automating workflows.
• Background supporting AI research teams, technical enterprise customers, or frontier AI labs with urgent, changing requirements.
• Familiarity with RLHF, reinforcement-learning environments, agent evaluations, human-in-the-loop data pipelines, annotation, or expert data collection is valuable.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, sound tradeoff judgment, and the ability to work independently in a fast-paced startup environment.

Compensation & Benefits

Base salary is $130,000 to $225,000 USD annually.

Visa sponsorship and relocation support are available for strong full-time candidates.

Location

On-site in San Francisco, California. The role is also open to remote candidates who can maintain 70% to 80% time zone overlap with San Francisco or Singapore.