Strategic Project Lead

APN Job ID#: 176840

Employment Type: Full-Time (FTE)
Work Mode: Onsite
Location: San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Salary Range: The base salary range for this position is $140,000 – $180,000 annually, plus a potential performance-based year-end bonus ranging from $100,000 to $500,000. In addition, equity compensation is indicated at $150,000 – $250,000 annually with a four-year vesting schedule; the final grant structure is subject to confirmation.

About Us
We are IntelliPro, a global talent solutions company. We partner with organizations to identify and support exceptional talent for complex technical programs. This role supports an innovative organization focused on data infrastructure and operational capabilities for AI and robotics systems.

Position Overview
We are seeking a Strategic Project Lead to serve as the primary technical and delivery partner for leading AI and robotics organizations. You will understand research objectives, translate them into concrete engineering and data-collection requirements, and lead cross-functional teams to deliver high-quality results.

This is not a traditional Customer Success or Forward-Deployed Engineer role. You will not primarily own sales relationships or spend most of your time building customer-specific software. Instead, you will own the full lifecycle of complex technical programs—from initial requirement discovery and solution design through execution, quality control, and final delivery.

The ideal candidate combines an engineering foundation, strong program leadership, hands-on understanding of hardware or robotics projects, and exceptional customer communication.
 
What You Will Own

- Partner directly with researchers and engineering leaders at leading AI and robotics organizations.
- Understand customer research goals and translate ambiguous requirements into clear technical specifications, project plans, and delivery milestones.
- Lead complex Physical AI data-collection programs involving hardware, robotics systems, operations, and data-quality workflows.
- Coordinate across research, engineering, hardware, data operations, and quality teams to drive execution.
- Define project scope, success metrics, timelines, resource requirements, and risk-mitigation plans.
- Identify technical or operational blockers early and work with internal teams to resolve them.
- Maintain high standards for data quality, system reliability, delivery speed, and customer satisfaction.
- Communicate progress, tradeoffs, risks, and technical decisions clearly to both customer and internal stakeholders.
- Build repeatable delivery processes as the company expands across customers and programs.
- Help shape the Strategic Project Lead function and operating model as an early member of the team.

What We’re Looking For

- Strong engineering background in robotics, machine learning, computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or a related technical field.
- Experience leading complex technical projects involving hardware, robotics, AI systems, data collection, or real-world deployment.
- Ability to communicate effectively with researchers and engineers working on advanced AI or robotics systems.
- Strong customer-facing skills with the ability to uncover underlying needs, manage expectations, and build trusted relationships.
- Demonstrated ability to translate open-ended technical problems into structured execution plans.
- Excellent project-management skills across multiple stakeholders, dependencies, and timelines.
- High ownership, sound judgment, and the ability to operate effectively in a fast-moving startup environment.
- Comfortable moving between technical discussions, customer communication, project planning, and hands-on problem-solving.

Preferred Qualifications

- Experience in Physical AI, robotics, autonomous systems, world models, embodied AI, or multimodal data.
- Familiarity with robotics control, robot learning, reinforcement learning, imitation learning, or real-world model training.
- Experience managing hardware-intensive projects or large-scale data-collection programs.
- Background in technical program management, solutions engineering, customer engineering, research operations, or technical customer success.
- Experience working with leading AI labs, research organizations, or highly technical enterprise customers.

Equal Employment Opportunity
IntelliPro is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to legally protected characteristics.