About the job
We're seeking an experienced Program Manager to join Cohere's customer-facing Program Management team, with a focus on Canadian public sector and defence accounts. This is a highly specialized role requiring an individual who understands technical program delivery, the technical complexity of frontier AI models and the unique requirements of government and defence organizations.
Responsibilities
- Own end-to-end technical program delivery for Canadian public sector and defence customers, from initial deployment through production scaling
- Serve as the primary technical program point of contact for government customers, building trusted relationships with departmental CIOs, IT directors, and technical teams
- Translate complex government requirements (security, compliance, accessibility, bilingualism, data sovereignty) into actionable engineering plans
- Navigate government procurement processes, RFP responses, and contractual technical obligations.
- Provide clear, timely, and objective communication across Cohere's engineering organization, customer stakeholders, and government leadership
- Translate between AI/ML technical concepts and government-appropriate language for decision-makers who may not have deep technical backgrounds
- Present technical roadmaps and status updates to senior government officials and departmental executives
- Represent Cohere's technical capabilities in sensitive government and defence contexts.
- Create and manage project schedules that account for government timelines, security review processes, and ministerial approval cycles
- Identify and manage dependencies across government departments, security authorities, cloud service providers, and internal Cohere teams
- Navigate risks unique to government deployments: privacy compliance, Algorithmic Impact Assessments, Treasury Board submissions, security authorizations
- Drive alignment between product development priorities and specific government requirements.
- Ensure on-time delivery of AI solutions that meet government-grade security, privacy, accessibility, and performance standards
- Coordinate technical work across multiple teams: model customization, security hardening, integration with government systems, bilingual support
- Establish governance checkpoints appropriate for high-stakes government deployments
- Problem-solve complex technical challenges in air-gapped, on-premises, or highly regulated environments.
Qualifications
Minimum
- 6+ years of experience as a customer-facing Technical or Engineering Program Manager in AI/ML consulting, technology transformation, or enterprise software delivery.
- Excellent executive communication and stakeholder management.
- Experience working with government, defence, or heavily regulated customers (public sector, defence contractors).
- Proven track record managing complex, multi-stakeholder technical programs with stringent compliance requirements.
- Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field; advanced degree or technical certs a plus.
Preferred
- Active Canadian government security clearance (Secret or Top Secret) - strong preference for active Top Secret clearance
- Bilingual (English/French) proficiency
- Background in or strong familiarity with Canadian defence, intelligence, or critical infrastructure sectors
- Experience with GC Cloud services (Azure, AWS GovCloud) or Protected B/C environments
- Project management certification (PMP, PgMP) or government-specific methodologies.