Senior Program Officer, Portable Memory & Context (24-Month LTE)

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation•Washington, DC

17d

About The Position

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve. We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, we’re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally. The Team USP Data & AI team works to unlock the full potential of data and artificial intelligence to improve educational and economic outcomes. Our vision is that by 2045, all learners and the adults who support them are empowered by safe, evidence-based, AI-enabled solutions that deliver personalized experiences and universally recognized skills – enabling them to navigate pathways, move across institutions, and thrive in meaningful work. To achieve this, we invest in three catalytic areas: AI solution enablement, trusted evidence for AI in education, and dynamic feedback systems. We amplify this work through investing in focus geographies, driving strategic partnerships with frontier AI labs and co-funders, and supporting other teams within U.S. Program in using data and AI to drive equitable impact. Application Deadline: Friday, April 24th This position is a limited-term position for 24-months. Relocation will be provided Your Role As the Senior Program Officer, Portable Memory & Context, you will lead investments focused on building the emerging portable memory and context infrastructure required for next-generation AI systems in education and workforce pathways. You will drive progress on the technical, standards, and governance foundations needed to enable user-controlled, interoperable, and longitudinal memory systems. Operating at the intersection of AI infrastructure, data ecosystems, and public-interest governance, you will identify where coordinated investment can unlock system-level capabilities that no single actor can build alone. This role requires defining ambiguous problem spaces, aligning stakeholders across sectors, and translating early-stage technical architectures into scalable, field-ready infrastructure with broad impact.

Requirements

An advanced degree or equivalent demonstrated experience, preferably in a related field.
Experience working across education and workforce systems, with an understanding of how data and AI can support transitions, mobility, and outcomes across the learner-to-earner lifecycle
Deep experience and technical credibility in AI and data infrastructure, with a strong understanding of how systems are designed, integrated, and scaled across components and use cases.
Experience with portable data and interoperable systems, and how they enable AI systems to leverage persistent, cross-context memory (e.g., identity frameworks, open standards, retrieval systems, agent architectures).
Track record of operating in emerging, ambiguous technical spaces, translating early architectures into concrete investments, partnerships, or products.
Experience convening and aligning multi-sector ecosystems (e.g., technology providers, public agencies, standards bodies), particularly where incentives are misaligned.
Strong understanding of governance, privacy, and trust frameworks, and how they must be embedded into system design.
Ability to assess where infrastructure should be standardized vs. differentiated, and where fragmentation poses systemic risk.
Proven ability to translate complex technical concepts into actionable strategy and investment decisions across organizational boundaries
Proven ability to lead complex portfolios and influence strategy across teams and external partners.
Understanding of how diverse communities and partners engage with AI and data systems in education and workforce contexts, and ability to incorporate their needs into infrastructure design and investment decisions.
Must have unrestricted work authorization in the country where this position is located. The Foundation does not provide immigration-related sponsorship for this role. This includes direct company sponsorship and any work authorization requiring a written submission or other immigration support from the company (e.g.: H-1B, O-1, L-1, E, OPT, STEM-OPT, CPT, TN, J-1, etc.)

Responsibilities

Develop and manage a portfolio advancing the end-to-end memory stack across education-to-workforce pathways, enabling persistent, portable learner and worker context through investments in identity, storage, memory management, agent integration, and governance.
Translate architecture into investable strategies: Identify where technical gaps (e.g., evaluation of longitudinal memory, provenance, agent orchestration, local-first constraints) require targeted funding, standards development, or field-building.
Drive standards and ecosystem alignment: convene partners across frontier AI labs, EdTech, workforce systems, and standards bodies to advance shared schemas, protocols, and portability frameworks, avoiding fragmented or siloed implementations.
Broker across technical and institutional layers: connect model developers, infrastructure providers, public sector actors, and product teams to ensure memory systems are usable across real-world education and workforce contexts
Identify and advance priority AI infrastructure layers for education and workforce systems: shape investments across shared components (e.g., data pipelines, evaluation systems, model adaptation, and deployment infrastructure) that enable multiple downstream use cases.
Identify and assess emerging technologies and standards that support interoperability across education-to-workforce ecosystems.
Build knowledge base and thought leadership around context-aware, learner-centered data solutions.
Serve as a technical resource to the division on AI infrastructure for education and workforce systems, including data, models, evaluation, and interoperability.
Negotiate, execute, and manage a complex portfolio of grants or performance-based contracts.
Consult with grantees and other partners to maximize project impact and ensure grants meet strategy goals. This may include site visits, providing operational guidance, and convening meetings of key stakeholders.
Represent the foundation to key program-related external constituencies, as appropriate, on committees related to area of expertise and responsibilities of the position.
Support inclusive culture through modeling behaviors and actions; escalate issues in a timely fashion to appropriate stakeholders.