Technical Program Manager, AI Delivery for Public Sector & Defence, UK

Overview

In this role you will lead end-to-end technical programs for UK public sector and defence customers, bridging Cohere’s frontier AI capabilities with government needs. You’ll navigate security, compliance, and procurement processes while aligning product delivery with government timelines. You’ll collaborate across engineering, product, and go-to-market teams to ensure successful deployments in sensitive environments. This is a mission-driven, high-impact role at the intersection of AI and national security, offering visibility with senior government stakeholders.

Pay / Benefits

• health and dental benefits
• parental leave top-up
• vacation entitlement
• learning stipend for conferences and courses
• lunch stipend
• travel budget to other offices

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end technical program delivery for UK public sector and defence customers from deployment to production scale
• Serve as primary technical PM for government customers, building trusted relationships with CIOs and IT teams
• Translate government requirements (security, compliance, accessibility, data sovereignty) into actionable engineering plans
• Navigate government procurement, RFPs, and contractual obligations
• Provide clear, timely communication across engineering, customer stakeholders, and government leadership
• Translate AI/ML concepts into government-appropriate language for decision-makers
• Present roadmaps and status updates to senior government officials
• Represent Cohere’s technical capabilities in sensitive government contexts
• Create and manage project schedules with government timelines and ministerial cycles
• Identify and manage dependencies across government departments, security authorities, cloud providers, and Cohere teams
• Navigate risks unique to government deployments (privacy, security authorisations, infrastructure constraints)
• Drive alignment between product development priorities and government requirements
• Ensure on-time delivery of AI solutions meeting government-grade standards
• Coordinate work across model customization, security hardening, and bilingual support
• Establish governance checkpoints for high-stakes deployments
• Problem-solve challenges in air-gapped/on-premises/regulated environments

Key requirements

• 6+ years as a customer-facing Technical or Engineering Program Manager in AI/ML consulting, technology transformation, or enterprise software delivery
• Excellent executive communication and stakeholder management
• Experience with government, defence, or heavily regulated customers
• Proven track record managing complex multi-stakeholder programs with stringent compliance
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field; advanced degree or certifications a plus
• Strong understanding of enterprise software deployment architectures (cloud, on-prem, hybrid, air-gapped)
• Knowledge of modern AI concepts (LLMs, agentic systems, RAG, fine-tuning, evals, responsible AI) is a plus
• Comfort discussing API integrations, model inference, data pipelines, and ML ops with technical stakeholders
• Deep understanding of government procurement, evaluation, deployment processes

• Executive communication
• Stakeholder management
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Enterprise software deployment architectures (cloud/on-prem/hybrid/air-gapped)
• AI/ML concepts (LLMs, agentic systems, RAG, fine-tuning, evals, responsible AI)
• API integrations, model inference, data pipelines, ML operations

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