Senior Program Manager, Perception Data Operations

Nuro•Mountain View, CA

About The Position

Nuro is seeking a Senior Program Manager for Perception Data Operations to join their Perception ML Operations team. This team is central to how Nuro's vehicles learn to perceive their environment, responsible for the training and evaluation data that powers perception models across various sensor modalities. The role involves translating company-wide perception feature requirements into concrete data deliverables, managing vendor allocation and budget against Nuro's timelines, and maintaining a clear view of outcomes, risk, and data quality. The position requires a strong sense of ownership, rigor, and clear communication, connecting directly to Nuro's mission of making everyday life safer and easier through autonomous vehicles. The ideal candidate will have a systems-thinking approach and command of both operational and technical aspects of perception data.

Requirements

5+ years of experience in Technical Program Management or Operations Strategy, managing complex, cross-functional programs within technology, autonomous driving, or AI/ML.
Demonstrated ability to translate high-level product roadmaps and engineering requirements into granular operational execution plans, including managing resource allocation and throughput for large-scale workflows.
Experience overseeing large-scale vendor operations or managed service providers, specifically against quality, latency, and volume targets.
Proficiency with SQL to query databases, analyze throughput metrics, and generate reports independently.
A track record of holding vendors accountable to a quality bar you've defined yourself, not just monitoring metrics someone else set.
Bachelor's degree in a technical or business discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

Background in autonomous vehicles, robotics, computer vision, or ML model training.
Prior experience in ML engineering, data engineering, or technical consulting.
Demonstrated track record of improving data quality or throughput at scale, with metrics to show for it.
Familiarity with autonomous vehicle sensor modalities (LiDAR, Radar, Camera, Thermal) and their respective data annotation requirements.

Responsibilities

Translate company-wide perception feature needs into detailed, actionable data deliverables covering vision, LiDAR, and additional sensor modalities.
Own the end-to-end labeling process, from data availability through an outcome Perception can train on, directing data annotation partners to execute against that bar.
Own vendor allocation and budgeting in direct alignment with Nuro's milestone and release timelines.
Oversee large-scale vendor and managed service provider relationships against quality, latency, and volume targets, and hold them accountable when performance drifts.
Define and maintain clear, current tracking of outcomes, risk, and data quality so that status is never a surprise to engineering or leadership.
Own quality as an outcome, not just a status: define what "good" looks like for deliverables within your pipelines, and hold vendors to that bar before problems surface downstream.
In response to quality dips, identify whether the issue is an isolated labeling error or a broader process failure, and address the root cause rather than just the single error.
Translate high-level product roadmaps and engineering requirements into granular operational execution plans, with resource allocation and throughput modeled explicitly.
Query databases directly using SQL (Python a plus) to analyze throughput and quality metrics and generate reporting without waiting on engineering support.