Technical Program Manager
About Basis
Basis is a nonprofit applied AI research organization with two mutually reinforcing goals.
The first is to understand and build intelligence. This means to establish the mathematical principles of what it means to reason, to learn, to make decisions, to understand, and to explain; and to construct software that implements these principles.
The second is to advance society’s ability to solve intractable problems. This means expanding the scale, complexity, and breadth of problems that we can solve today, and even more importantly, accelerating our ability to solve problems in the future.
To achieve these goals, we’re building both a new technological foundation that draws inspiration from how humans reason, and a new kind of collaborative organization that puts human values first.
About the Role
We’re seeking a Technical Program Manager who is deeply passionate about program management to drive ambitious research projects forward. You’ll work across several projects, serving as a linchpin between our researchers, engineering teams, leadership, and external collaborators, requiring both technical depth and project management expertise.
Core Responsibilities
Develop and maintain project roadmaps, translating long-term strategic goals into milestones and tasks
Run regular team meetings, triaging issues, and ensuring research scientists and engineers stay on track
Coordinate between core technical and project teams, identifying and resolving dependencies
Write and review technical design documents and project plans
Model human, compute, and financial resources across projects
Contribute technically when necessary
Engage with external project-partners, nurturing existing relationships and cultivating new collaborations
Continuously refine Basis’ approach to project management in research
Qualifications and Attributes
We’re looking for someone with:
4+ years managing technical (scientific/engineering) projects, with demonstrable impact
PhD-level comprehension of AI/ML concepts (though a PhD itself isn’t required)
Proficiency with project management tools such as Linear, JIRA, or equivalent
Familiarity with version control systems (e.g., Git) and collaboration tools (e.g., Notion, GSuite)
Exceptional writing skills, able to communicate complex ideas clearly and concisely
More important than any specific qualification is your ability to navigate uncertainty and find clarity in complexity. The problems we’re tackling don’t have clear solutions-that’s why we’re tackling them.
Our ideal candidate is someone who:
Thinks from first principles, knowing when to adopt or discard standard practices
Simplifies complexity and sees unnecessary processes as problems to be solved
Automates everything that should be automated
Makes tough calls on project direction and resource allocation, often with incomplete information
Excels at distilling nebulous research questions into concrete, actionable project plans
Understands the human side of research, balances individual team-member needs with project progress
Works and acts quickly, maintaining team momentum at the right level of intensity
Relentlessly reduces uncertainty and ambiguity-is persistent in getting clarity
Has expertise in our core technical areas including statistics, causal reasoning, probabilistic machine learning, and/or programming languages, with an appetite to learn more
Is a fast learner, able to quickly build upon a solid mathematical foundation into the diverse technical areas that we work in
Obsesses over effective program management and continuously asks, “How can we do this better?”
Role Details
Location: NY
Work Mode: In-person
Employment Type: Full-time
Salary: $100,000 - $160,000
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Basis Research Institute provides equal employment opportunities without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or genetics and prohibits discrimination based on all protected characteristics.
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