Technical Program Manager, AI Delivery for Public Sector & Defence

Cohere is seeking a Technical Program Manager for AI delivery in the public sector and defense. This remote role focuses on managing complex AI programs for Canadian government clients, ensuring compliance and successful deployment. Cohere is the leading security-first enterprise AI company. We build cutting-edge foundation AI models and end-to-end products that are designed to solve real-world business problems. We’re training and deploying frontier models for enterprises who are building AI systems. We believe that our work is instrumental to the widespread adoption of AI and we are looking for folks that want to be part of that. We obsess over what we build. Each one of us is responsible for contributing to increasing the capabilities of our models and the value they drive for our customers. Cohere is a team of researchers, engineers, designers, and more, who are all passionate about their craft. We are a global technology company co-headquartered in Toronto and San Francisco, with key offices in London, New York City, Montreal, Seoul, Germany and Paris. Join us!

• •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.

• •A weekly lunch stipend of $75/£75 or equivalent in your local currency for lunch.
• •Full health and dental benefits, including a separate budget for mental health.
• •RRSP matching, 401K, Pension Scheme.
• •100% Parental Leave top-up for up to 6 months, for either parent.
• •Annual enrichment benefits:
• •Arts & culture, fitness/wellness, quality time, and a workspace improvement credit.
• •Education & learning stipend for conferences, courses, and coaching.
• •6 weeks of paid vacation (30 working days!).
• •Budget for traveling to other offices if you are remote, plus an annual company offsite.

• •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.

• •Strong understanding of enterprise software deployment architectures (cloud, on-premises, hybrid, air-gapped).
• •Working knowledge of or experience with modern AI: LLMs, agentic systems, MCP, RAG, fine-tuning, evals, and responsible AI would be a strong differentiator.
• •Comfortable discussing API integrations, model inference, data pipelines, and ML operations with technical stakeholders.

• •Deep understanding of how government organizations procure, evaluate, and deploy technology.
• •Familiarity with Canadian government requirements: data sovereignty, privacy laws (Privacy Act), accessibility standards, official languages obligations, security classifications.
• •Understanding of defence and national security considerations in AI deployment.
• •Experience with Algorithmic Impact Assessments or AI ethics frameworks is a strong asset.
• •Eligible to obtain Canadian government security clearance (Top Secret preferred).