Most TPM roles in logistics technology focus on tracking timelines and coordinating delivery milestones. This role is different. As Staff Technical Program Manager for Stord Labs, you will own the operational backbone of a high-velocity innovation program, ensuring that ideas move seamlessly from hypothesis to physical testing to scalable deployment across Stord's fulfillment network.

Stord Labs is an innovation center designed to evaluate emerging logistics technologies and redefine the future of fulfillment. In this role, you will orchestrate the full lifecycle of experiments inside a live micro-fulfillment environment-ensuring that promising ideas are rigorously tested, clearly validated, and efficiently transitioned into production where they create measurable business impact.

You will operate at the center of a complex ecosystem spanning robotics vendors, frontier AI partners, academic institutions, internal product and engineering teams, and executive stakeholders. Your mandate is to ensure operational continuity across all of these interfaces-removing friction, accelerating decision-making, and maintaining a disciplined pipeline from experimentation to enterprise-scale rollout.

This is a role for a systems-oriented program leader who thrives in ambiguity, understands deeply technical environments, and can translate between research, engineering, and operations without losing speed or precision.

What You'll Do:

Cross-Functional Orchestration & Governance

• Experiment Lifecycle Management: Own and govern the end-to-end experimentation pipeline. Ensure every initiative begins with a clearly defined hypothesis, measurable success criteria, and structured evaluation framework. Enforce disciplined kill/scale decisions based on performance outcomes.
• Cross-Functional Coordination: Serve as the primary integration point between the five-person Stord Labs team and broader enterprise stakeholders, including product, engineering, operations leadership, and warehouse operations teams executing physical workflows.
• Operational Alignment: Facilitate decision-making between operations and product leadership to transition validated technologies from lab environments into live production pilots and eventually enterprise-scale deployment.

Strategic Partner Management & Prioritization

• Innovation Roadmap Management: Own and sequence a prioritized experimentation pipeline spanning robotics, automation, AI systems, and operational design improvements, balancing internal development and external vendor evaluations.
• External Collaboration: Coordinate technical and operational engagement with frontier AI organizations, robotics providers, and academic institutions (including partners such as Georgia Tech) to test and validate next-generation logistics capabilities.
• Systems Integration Coordination: Oversee integration testing across third-party automation systems, internal software platforms, human operators, and Stord's WMS/OMS ecosystem.

Network Scaling & External Visibility

• Scaling Playbooks: Develop structured deployment frameworks and operational playbooks to ensure successful translation of validated lab innovations (e.g., co-mingled inventory strategies, multi-pass picking, predictive replenishment) into production environments.
• Customer & Executive Demonstrations: Partner with Marketing and Product teams to execute customer demo days and executive showcases highlighting emerging capabilities and validated innovations.
• Pilot Program Management: Coordinate co-funded pilot programs with enterprise customers to test real operational challenges within the lab prior to broader rollout.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Industrial Engineering, Supply Chain, or a related technical discipline.
• 8+ years of experience in Technical Program Management, Engineering Management, or complex cross-functional delivery roles.
• Demonstrated experience managing hardware/software integration programs in operational or logistics environments.
• Strong domain knowledge of supply chain systems, warehouse automation, robotics integration, or fulfillment operations.
• Proven experience leading vendor management processes, including RFPs, evaluation frameworks, and strategic partnership development.
• Strong execution discipline across agile, sprint-based, or similar iterative delivery methodologies.

Bonus Points:

• Prior experience in innovation labs, R&D environments, or advanced manufacturing/automation programs.
• Familiarity with warehouse data ecosystems and system architectures (WMS, OMS, WES, WCS).
• Exposure to data science, simulation, or digital twin initiatives supporting operational optimization or AI-driven forecasting.

Note: This role is not eligible for visa sponsorship or employment-based immigration support.