Program Lead

Your New Role and Team

Sanctuary AI, a world leader in building dexterity-driven Physical AI for general purpose robots, is looking to hire a Program Lead to lead one of Sanctuary’s core company programs. Each Sanctuary program represents a major cross-functional effort that integrates software, hardware, and machine learning into cohesive systems designed to push the boundaries of robotics and intelligence.

Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, the Program Lead acts as the accountable owner for the program’s success. You will define goals, orchestrate delivery, and manage the resources, tradeoffs, and dependencies required to achieve them. You will partner closely with leaders across engineering, product, operations, and research to ensure that program outcomes directly advance Sanctuary’s mission to build human-like intelligence in machines.

The ideal candidate combines technical fluency, business judgment, and a strong sense of ownership. You see the program as a business within the business and are motivated by building something enduring and impactful.

Success Criteria

• Serve as the single point of accountability for one of Sanctuary’s most complex and strategically significant programs
• Define the program’s strategic objectives, roadmap, and success metrics in partnership with executive and technical leadership
• Translate high-level goals into executable plans that balance innovation, speed, and quality
• Manage and prioritize resources, budgets, and timelines to ensure optimal use of both internal and external capabilities
• Drive decision-making across functions and ensure alignment between technical execution and business outcomes
• Identify risks, evaluate tradeoffs, and guide cross-functional problem-solving to keep the program on track
• Communicate progress, decisions, and strategic implications to company leadership with clarity and credibility
• Represent the program internally and externally, ensuring consistent alignment with Sanctuary’s technical and commercial vision

Your Experience and Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience leading complex, multi-disciplinary programs in robotics, AI, or advanced engineering environments
• Proven success owning program outcomes that span technical development, operational delivery, and cross-functional alignment
• Strong business and technical acumen, with the ability to engage deeply on both strategic direction and detailed execution
• Demonstrated experience managing budgets, dependencies, and external partnerships
• Track record of influencing senior leaders and driving alignment across large organizations
• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, computer science, or a related technical discipline

Skills

• Exceptional ability to connect technical detail to strategic intent and business impact
• Skilled at building and maintaining alignment across diverse teams with differing priorities
• Adept at resource and schedule management, risk analysis, and tradeoff decision-making
• Strong analytical and systems thinking capabilities to manage interdependent technical domains
• Clear and persuasive communicator, able to tailor messaging for technical and non-technical audiences
• Proficient in modern program management tools and frameworks such as Jira, Smartsheet, or similar platforms

Traits

• Operates as a true owner of the program, with strong accountability for outcomes rather than tasks
• Balances strategic vision with a bias for pragmatic execution
• Collaborative, grounded, and trusted by peers across disciplines
• Thrives in high-complexity, high-ambiguity environments where clarity must be created rather than found
• Deeply motivated by Sanctuary’s mission to create human-like intelligence in machines and bring it to practical use in the world

Working at Sanctuary AI

Sanctuary AI is an equal opportunity employer; employment with Sanctuary AI is governed based on skills, competence, and qualifications and will not be influenced in any way by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status. In 2023, Sanctuary AI moved into a state-of-the-art office facility and has been recognized by LinkedIn as a Top Startup company.

Compensation and Benefits

Sanctuary offers a market-leading compensation package that includes competitive salaries, equity stakes, and a full suite of benefits for permanent employees, encompassing health coverage, paid time off, cutting-edge work facilities, and worksite flexibility by role. Our commitment to fairness ensures that our total compensation consistently surpasses market standards.

About Sanctuary AI

Founded in 2018, Sanctuary builds humanoid robots and a novel control system for them that integrates symbolic logic and reasoning with data-driven robot foundation models. We use our robots to collect vision, audio, touch, and proprioception data from the perspective of the robot while they perform real-world work tasks. We use that data to train multimodal robot foundation models. Because our systems are vertically integrated, we can design, deploy, and refine at scale. Our mission is to create the world's first human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots.