Staff Technical Program Manager

Key Skills

Autonomous vehicles, Effective communication skills, Product Management, Software Development

Job Description

Kodiak Robotics is known in the self-driving industry and our customer base as the safest, most scalable, and capable L4 self-driving truck technology (the Kodiak Driver). Kodiak will outfit our technology into our fleet partners’ trucks to augment their existing Class 8 fleet, running long-haul (100s to 1000s miles) lanes across the USA. Our approach to self driving technology began with our industry veteran leadership team in 2018, who knew that existing approaches couldn’t hope to scale and so set about creating a system that is exponentially faster to map new roads (and safer when mapped), has a sensor setup that is faster to swap out than a tire, and already has in place the fundamental redundant fallback technology to cover edge cases like a burst tire. Kodiak is also now expanding its product offerings to theNational Security arena, to extend our class leading technology to help protect and save the lives of our servicewomen and servicemen.

We are looking for an experienced Technical Program Manager to join us and advance the development of our commercial and defense product lines.

Kodiak is a highly collaborative organization based in Mountain View, CA. This role will require presence in our Mountain View office to collaborate, with some limited travel expected.

In this role you will:

• Primarily work with autonomy software teams to plan work for the development of new self driving software.

• Collaborate with engineering, product, and operations teams to develop new features for commercial and defense product lines.

• Work across multiple engineering teams to lead technical feature planning activities against our product requirements, ensuring scope is well defined and features are feasible according to our timelines. Work closely with product managers to negotiate scope in order to ensure that requirements will always have a feasible plan in place. 

• Create technical execution roadmaps across engineering teams to tie features and dependencies to time, and track dependencies across teams.

• Manage the progress of the overall engineering program to meet objectives and goals, defining schedules, milestones, and resource allocation for successful execution. Communicate schedules, status, and priorities to all levels of the organization. 

• Improve the overall performance of the system by driving top performance issues to completion, such as prioritizing and burning down bugs, and making priority calls on team direction. 

• Prioritize and manage issues, risks, and dependencies and resolve any barriers to moving projects forward. 

• Support and guide decision making by clearly communicating risks and implications to stakeholders. 

• Perform technical analysis to resolve open issues. 

• Develop tools and processes to improve engineering productivity.

What you'll have:

• Strong program management background, with at least 5+ years of experience managing core autonomy / robotics software development.

• Bachelors in Computer Science, Engineering, or a similar technical field.

• Experience managing fast paced initiatives, often with multiple stakeholders, complex schedules, and priority calls that need to be made.

• Strong understanding of software / hardware development processes and how to efficiently execute.

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills. You know how to facilitate tradeoffs between engineering and product requirements, but always maintain high safety standards.

• Passion. You are passionate about autonomous vehicles and their potential impact on humanity.

What we offer:

• Competitive compensation package including equity and biannual bonuses

• Excellent Medical, Dental, and Vision plans through Kaiser Permanente, Anthem, and Guardian (including a medical plan with infertility benefits)

• Flexible PTO and generous parental leave policies

• Office perks: dog-friendly, free catered lunch, a fully stocked kitchen, and free EV charging

• Long Term Disability, Short Term Disability, Life Insurance

• Wellbeing Benefits - Headspace, One Medical, Gympass, Spring Health

• Fidelity 401(k)

• Commuter, FSA, Dependent Care FSA, HSA

• Various incentive programs (referral bonuses, patent bonuses, etc.)

The annual salary range for this full-time position is $160,000-$210,000 + bonus + equity + benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level and location. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. We can share more about the specific salary range for your job level during the hiring process. Please note that the compensation details listed above are base salary only and do not include bonus, equity, or benefits.

At Kodiak, we strive to build a diverse community working towards our common company goals in a safe and collaborative environment where harassment of any kind is strictly prohibited. Kodiak is committed to equal opportunity employment regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, or veteran status, or any other basis protected by applicable law.