Technical Program Manager, AI Infrastructure

Character.AI•Redwood City, CA

About The Position

We’re hiring a Program Manager, AI Infrastructure to lead high-impact programs that power Character.AI’s model development and serving systems at scale. In this role, you’ll partner closely with engineering, research, and product teams to shape infrastructure strategy, align roadmaps, and drive end-to-end execution for critical initiatives across training, evaluation, and inference. You’ll help ensure our systems are reliable, efficient, and capable of supporting rapid iteration as we scale AI experiences to millions of users. This role is a good match for someone who thrives in technically complex environments, enjoys bringing structure to ambiguous problem spaces, and can drive alignment across deeply cross-functional teams. You’ll often operate at the intersection of research and production, helping teams navigate tradeoffs between speed, quality, and reliability. You should be comfortable influencing without authority, anticipating risks early, and keeping large, interdependent efforts moving forward.

Requirements

5–8 years of experience in program management, technical operations, or product execution in a fast-moving, technical environment
Proven ability to lead complex, multi-team initiatives spanning engineering and infrastructure systems
Strong communication skills with the ability to bridge technical and non-technical stakeholders
Experience working closely with engineering teams on distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, or platform development
Ability to break down ambiguous problem spaces into clear plans and drive alignment across teams
Analytical mindset with experience using data to inform decisions and measure impact
Strong ownership and execution mindset, with the ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously

Responsibilities

Lead planning and execution of major AI infrastructure initiatives spanning training pipelines, data systems, model evaluation, and inference/serving
Build structures that keep teams aligned: scopes, goals, requirements, timelines, risks, and success metrics
Partner with engineering, research, and product to translate model and product needs into infrastructure roadmaps and priorities
Drive cross-functional accountability and communication across teams working on tightly coupled systems
Track key infrastructure metrics (e.g., reliability, latency, throughput, cost efficiency) and define reporting that surfaces progress and risk
Identify bottlenecks in infrastructure workflows and lead efforts to improve tooling, automation, and developer velocity
Support capacity planning and resource allocation to ensure infrastructure scales with model and product growth
Develop repeatable frameworks and operational patterns that improve execution quality across infrastructure programs
Serve as a strategic partner to leaders on prioritization, sequencing, and tradeoffs across infrastructure investments.
Work closely with AI cloud providers and serve as the primary bridge between internal engineering teams and external partnership efforts.
Technical understanding of GPU clusters, AI accelerator chips, and cloud providers to effectively evaluate requirements and guide infrastructure decisions.