Senior Program Lead, Fellow Experience

Handshake•San Francisco, CA

11d

About The Position

The Senior Program Lead, Fellow Experience is a senior individual contributor role responsible for designing, operating, and continuously improving a dedicated Fellow program in partnership with one of Handshake AI’s top frontier AI lab customers. This role owns the structure, systems, and execution of a single, high-impact, cohort-based program that supports advanced AI research and data initiatives for a flagship customer. Handshake AI is a rapidly growing startup, and this role is well-suited for someone who thrives in early-stage environments while holding a high bar for rigor, consistency, and professionalism. You will be responsible for bringing clarity, structure, and repeatability to a complex, customer-specific program, while partnering closely with teams across Operations, Product, Learning, and Strategic Project Leads. As the first dedicated Program Lead for Fellow Experience, you will play a foundational role in shaping how customer-specific programs are designed, run, and scaled over time. This role requires strong judgment, executive presence, and the ability to balance near-term delivery for a single, demanding customer with longer-term system building. You will operate with significant autonomy and influence, without relying on formal authority. As the first dedicated Program Lead for Fellow Experience, you will define the playbooks, systems, and automation strategies that enable this program and future programs to scale with quality and efficiency.

Requirements

Approximately 5-7+ years of experience in program management, operations, or related roles, ideally within high-growth or early-stage environments.
Demonstrated success stabilizing, scaling, or improving complex programs or operational systems.
Comfortable operating as a senior individual contributor with broad ownership, autonomy, and accountability.
Strong judgment and emotional intelligence; able to set high standards while building trust and collaboration.
Proven ability to influence cross-functional partners who own adjacent or overlapping responsibilities.
Experience building or implementing scalable systems, automations, or tooling in program or operations contexts.
Highly organized and operationally rigorous, with a data-informed approach to decision-making.
Excellent written and verbal communicator, capable of engaging technical, academic, and operational audiences.
Empathetic toward Fellows while maintaining a clear point of view on performance, accountability, and program outcomes.
Motivated by working closely with emerging AI technologies and contributing to a mission-driven startup environment.

Responsibilities

Design, launch, and operate a cohort-based Fellow program dedicated to a single frontier AI lab customer, balancing delivery requirements, Fellow retention, and operational efficiency.
Own program structure, timelines, onboarding models, communication standards, and execution rhythms for this customer’s cohorts.
Translate ambiguous customer and internal objectives into clear program plans, operating cadences, and accountability mechanisms in partnership with Strategic Project Leads.
Own the end-to-end Fellow experience for this specific customer program, from onboarding through program completion and ongoing engagement.
Partner closely with Product and Learning teams to ensure Fellows are set up for success against customer-specific expectations and quality standards.
Drive measurable improvements in Fellow retention, engagement, satisfaction, and program completion for the customer program.
Identify recurring friction points that impact Fellow performance, morale, or delivery quality and implement durable, scalable solutions.
Build and refine playbooks, workflows, and lightweight systems that enable consistency today and scalability over time.
Design program operations with leverage in mind, creating reusable frameworks and documentation that can be applied to future customers and cohorts.
Identify and implement opportunities to use automation, internal tooling, and AI-powered workflows to reduce manual effort, improve quality, and increase reliability.
Operate effectively within evolving systems, improving them while maintaining high-quality day-to-day execution.
Reduce program-level escalations through stronger structure, clearer communication, and system-level improvements.
Partner closely with Strategic Project Leads, Product Managers, Operations, Learning, and customer-facing stakeholders supporting the frontier AI lab.
Influence outcomes through strong judgment, credibility, and alignment rather than formal authority.
Serve as a trusted point of contact for program-level issues related to this customer that span multiple teams or functions.
Represent the Fellow Experience perspective in customer-specific planning, risk discussions, and escalation management.
Define and monitor key program metrics for the customer program, including retention, engagement, completion rates, quality indicators, and escalations.
Use data, Fellow feedback, and direct observation to iterate on program design and execution in alignment with customer needs.
Synthesize insights and share recommendations that inform improvements across Fellow Experience, Product, and Operations, particularly for high-stakes customer programs.
Experiment thoughtfully with automation and AI tools to improve Fellow experience, operational consistency, and internal efficiency, and codify successful approaches into repeatable playbooks.