5+ years as a Technical Program Manager (TPM) or engineer transitioned to TPM in infrastructure or cloud programs.
Strong technical knowledge of ML infrastructure, Kubernetes, GPUs, and distributed systems; familiarity with LLM inference is a plus.
Proven ability to manage cross-team programs without formal authority.
Ability to maintain composure during escalations and bring order to chaotic situations.
Excellent written communication skills for both technical and executive audiences.
High sense of ownership with a focus on process improvement.
Responsibilities
Run the priority account cadence, ensuring zero surprise escalations to executives.
Facilitate connections between teams, ensuring clear ownership and accountability for transitions and escalations.
Coordinate cross-team programs for major customers, ensuring structured execution rather than relying on individual heroics.
Identify and eliminate obstacles to engineering efficiency, preserving time for platform development.
Develop and present metrics scorecards to leadership, tracking account health and team performance.
Drive team scaling initiatives, including new-hire training and account load balancing.
Manage risks and dependencies across teams, providing timely updates to leadership.
Communicate effectively across technical and executive levels, producing concise program reviews.
Benefits
Competitive compensation with significant equity options.
100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and their dependents (U.S. only).
Flexible PTO policy, including a company-wide Winter Break from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day.
Paid parental leave and fertility support through Carrot.
Company-facilitated 401(k) plan (U.S. only).
Access to a diverse range of ML startups for enhanced learning and networking opportunities.
Full Job Description
THE ROLE
Forward Deployed Engineering is Baseten's swat team. We're deeply technical, great with customers and fast, and we make the platform better with everything we learn in the field. FDEs take on the hardest inference problems for our most strategic customers: novel architectures, extreme scale, tight latency budgets. Then we turn those solutions into a platform no one can match.
We're scaling the team quickly. We need someone to build the operating system that lets a fast-growing team of engineers stay focused on hard problems instead of coordination.
This is a high-visibility role with direct exposure to our largest customers and to company leadership. You'll shape how a new kind of engineering team operates in the AI industry.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Run the priority account cadence. Own the operating rhythm for our top accounts: daily hot-account check-ins, the weekly "forest view" review with leadership, and the account list itself with Sales leadership. Goal: zero surprise escalations to our execs.
Make the bridges work. Our FDE team connects to SA and Sales, Product, engineering (inference, infra), capacity and on-call. You'll make sure each connection has a clear owner, cadence and SLA, with no hand-offs falling through the cracks:
Account transitions between solution architect and FDE, with exit criteria and runbooks
Non-P0 escalations to engineering teams, tracked and burned down weekly
Customer patterns and gaps flowing into the product roadmap
Drive cross-team programs for our largest customers. Coordinate multi-team efforts such as dedicated-capacity rollouts, cluster migrations, capacity reservations and large customer launches. Bring together various teams so these run on a plan, not on heroics.
Reduce toil and protect platform time. Track where engineering time goes: incidents another team owns, manual routing and config changes, after-hours pages. Work with engineering leads to remove the biggest sources of obstacles, so FDEs keep 30% of their time for shaping the platform.
Own the metrics. Build and report the metrics scorecard (account health, response times, toil, load per engineer, team health) to leadership.
Help us scale the team. Drive programs like new-hire enablement and certification, account load balancing, and run book coverage. Partner with Recruiting on hiring operations as we grow.
Manage risk and dependencies. Maintain a clear-eyed view of cross-team dependencies and risks; surface them early, drive mitigation, and keep leadership informed with honest, signal-rich updates.
Communicate up, down, and across. Translate between deeply technical teams and senior leadership. Run effective program reviews and write the kind of crisp statuses that let busy people make fast decisions.
REQUIREMENTS
5+ years as a TPM (or engineer turned TPM) on infrastructure, cloud or customer-facing technical programs
Technical depth: you're comfortable with ML Infra systems, Kubernetes, GPUs and distributed systems, and can follow an incident channel or a design doc without a translator. Experience with LLM inference is a strong plus.
You've run programs across many teams at once and kept them moving without formal authority
Calm in the middle of an escalation: you bring structure to chaos and close the loop
You write clearly and concisely, for engineers and for execs
High ownership, and you'd rather fix the process than work around it
NICE-TO-HAVES
Experience working on AI / ML Infra stack.
Background in solutions engineering, SRE or forward-deployed teams
WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE
In your first few months, you'll have taken ownership of one or more in-flight programs, established the operating rhythm they were missing, and built the trust that makes teams want you in the room.
Within a year, the programs you run are the ones leadership doesn't worry about, because the structure is clear, the risks are visible early, and the follow-ups always close.
BENEFITS
Competitive compensation, including meaningful equity
(U.S. only) 100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance for employee and dependents
Flexible PTO policy including company wide Winter Break (our offices are closed from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day!)
Paid parental leave
Fertility and family-building stipend through Carrot
(U.S. only) Company-facilitated 401(k)
Exposure to a variety of ML startups, offering unparalleled learning and networking opportunities.
Apply now to embark on a rewarding journey in shaping the future of AI! If you are a motivated individual with a passion for machine learning and a desire to be part of a collaborative and forward-thinking team, we would love to hear from you.
