Technical Program Manager, Product Experience

About the role

Character.AI is looking for a high‑leverage, force‑multiplying Technical Program Manager (TPM) to partner directly with our Chief Product Officer (CPO). In this role you will operate across the entire product and design purview of the CPO to ensure our core development engines run seamlessly.

Key responsibilities

• Keep the Trains Running on Time: Own the end‑to‑end execution of major initiatives under the CPO’s umbrella, ensuring critical product, design, and engineering milestones are hit without friction.
• Eliminate Blockers: Proactively manage cross‑functional dependencies across product, design, and engineering teams, ensuring development never stalls for information or decisions.
• Drive Accountability: Attend weekly core team meetings, capture critical technical notes, synthesize action items, and relentlessly chase owners to ensure rigorous follow‑through.
• Process Evolution: Analyze current team workflows and design lightweight, scalable processes to improve cross‑functional execution throughout the software development life cycle.
• Product & Design Sync: Build deep context on the CPO’s vision and product strategy to bridge creative design concepts with technical implementation.
• Unstructured Problem Solving: Roll up your sleeves to resolve ambiguous, complex technical or operational problems that do not fit neatly into a single team’s bucket.
• AI‑Driven Workflows: Leverage AI tools such as Gemini to optimise team workflows, capture project knowledge efficiently, and explore agentic workflows that enhance team intelligence.

Required profile

• Founder Energy & High Agency: Possess extreme ownership, spotting gaps and autonomously solving problems without waiting for direction.
• Execution Machine: Strong background in technical program management, product management, or intensive technical operations, with a track record of navigating fast‑moving tech roadmaps.
• High Cognitive Agility: Ability to pivot from deep‑technical alignment with engineers to high‑level roadmap prioritisation with design and product leaders within an hour.
• Relentless Communicator: Crisp, direct, and excellent at synthesis, ensuring information flows seamlessly across the organisation.
• AI‑Curious: Genuine fascination with artificial intelligence and eagerness to experiment with cutting‑edge tools to optimise operational efficiency.