AI Program Manager

Job Description

Insight Global is looking for a Technical AI Program Manager to join a startup organization/ AI incubator team within one of the largest AI Solutions firms in the country. This AI Program Manager will manage the entire AI studio - not a single product but a continuous innovation framework. They own intake, sprint cycles, stakeholder coordination, delivery cadence, scheduling, resource management, and onboarding/offboarding. They are the person who sees what the rest of the team can't because they operate at a higher altitude than any individual engagement. What makes this role different from a traditional project manager or scrum master is scope and judgment. The PM isn't managing a Gantt chart or running standup rituals for their own sake. They're managing a portfolio of concurrent experiments, each on a 4-6 week cycle, with shifting stakeholder priorities, variable team capacity, and constant intake of new ideas. The work is inherently unpredictable; the PM creates the structure that lets the team operate within that unpredictability instead of being consumed by it. In a traditional consulting model, coordination gets distributed across engagement managers, resource managers, PMO staff, and delivery leads. In the AI Studio pod, it's one person -- because the team is small enough that one person can hold the full context, and splitting it would create more handoff friction than it eliminates.

Core Responsibilities

Idea Intake and Pipeline Management:

-Own the intake process for new ideas, requests, and problem statements from stakeholders.

-Triage and prioritize incoming requests against current capacity and strategic

alignment

-Maintain a visible pipeline of what's been proposed, what's been accepted, what's in progress, and what's been delivered or shelved

-Ensure nothing falls through the cracks -- every idea gets a response, even if the response is "not now"

Delivery Rhythm and Sprint Coordination:

-Own the sprint cadence: planning, execution, review, retrospective

-Manage the backlog -- not just maintaining a list, but actively grooming it with the Strategist and Forward Deployed Engineers to ensure work items are well

defined and sequenced

-Track progress against sprint commitments and surface risks early when things are going off track

-Coordinate handoffs between the Forward Deployed Engineers (problem framing) to ensure nothing gets lost in translation

Stakeholder Coordination and Communication

-Serve as the primary operational point of contact for stakeholders -- status updates, schedule coordination, escalation management

• Produce regular status visibility: what the team is working on, what's been

delivered, what's coming next, where the risks are

-Coordinate demo scheduling and stakeholder review sessions

-Manage expectations proactively -- if a timeline is slipping or scope needs to change, stakeholders hear it from the PM before they have to ask

Team Operations

-Own scheduling and resource management -- who's working on what, when, and for how long

-Manage onboarding for new team members joining an engagement

-Manage offboarding and knowledge transfer when team members rotate off

-Coordinate across multiple concurrent engagements when managing more than one pod

-Handle the operational logistics that FDEs shouldn't have to think about -- tool access, environment setup, meeting logistics, documentation standards

Operational Visibility and Risk Surfacing

-Maintain a clear, always-current picture of what's happening across the pods

-Surface risks, blockers, and dependencies before they become problems -- don't wait for someone to ask

-Track metrics that matter cycle time, throughput, stakeholder satisfaction, idea to-delivery velocity

-Provide the data and context that leadership needs to make decisions about capacity, investment, and scaling

We are a company committed to creating diverse and inclusive environments where people can bring their full, authentic selves to work every day. We are an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer that believes everyone matters. Qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment regardless of their race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, marital status, national origin, ancestry, genetic factors, age, disability, protected veteran status, military or uniformed service member status, or any other status or characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations, and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or recruiting process, please send a request to [email protected] learn more about how we collect, keep, and process your private information, please review Insight Global's Workforce Privacy Policy: https://insightglobal.com/workforce-privacy-policy/.

Skills and Requirements

Target Locations: Boston, New York, Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Charlotte

5+ years of experience as a technical program manager that is able to create AI agents/AI to automate their PM manual tasks.

Experience working in a scrappy, fast-moving setting (startup, innovation lab, or consulting innovation work), not a traditional PMO setting

1. Decision ownership. We want someone whose instinct is "here is what I'm going to do, flagging for visibility," not "what should I do here?"

2. Follow-through with proactive communication. Closes loops, and when something slips they raise it early with a new plan, before anyone has to chase.

3. AI-native already. This is table stakes, not trainable-later. The right candidate uses AI daily in their own workflow now and can describe specifically how. Anyone who says they are "willing to learn it" is the wrong profile.

4. Organized by default. Keeps a running list, keeps the tracker current, gives realistic time estimates, holds many threads without dropping any.

5. Prioritization under load. Can take a burst of competing requests from multiple senior people at once and triage instead of drowning. A bad Tuesday should not derail the week.

6. Real-time engagement. Thinks and contributes live in meetings, catches the risk in the room, rather than reviewing transcripts after the fact.

7. Scrappy, zero ego, senior judgment. Comfortable doing the unglamorous logistics and the higher-altitude requirements work in the same day.