Role overview

Cohere is a leading enterprise AI company building foundation models and end-to-end products for real-world business applications. We are seeking an experienced Technical Program Manager to lead our delivery efforts with UK public sector and defence customers, serving as the bridge between our AI capabilities and the unique needs of government organisations.

Key responsibilities

Own end-to-end technical program delivery for UK public sector and defence customers, managing the entire lifecycle from initial deployment through production scaling.
Act as the primary technical point of contact for government customers, building trusted relationships with departmental leaders and serving as the technical program lead for high-impact government engagements.
Translate complex government requirements including security, compliance, accessibility, and data sovereignty into actionable engineering plans and navigate procurement processes and contractual obligations.
Provide clear communication across Cohere’s engineering teams and government stakeholders, explaining technical concepts and AI capabilities in language appropriate for government decision-makers.
Create and manage project schedules that account for government timelines, security review processes, and ministerial approval cycles while identifying and managing cross-organisational dependencies.
Ensure on-time delivery of AI solutions meeting government-grade security, privacy, accessibility, and performance standards, coordinating technical work across model customisation, security hardening, and system integration.
Problem-solve complex technical challenges specific to air-gapped, on-premises, or highly regulated government environments.

Requirements

At least six years of experience as a customer-facing Technical or Engineering Program Manager in AI/ML consulting, technology transformation, or enterprise software delivery.
Proven track record managing complex, multi-stakeholder technical programs with stringent compliance requirements and excellent executive communication and stakeholder management skills.
Experience working with government, defence, or heavily regulated customers such as public sector or defence contractors.
Strong understanding of enterprise software deployment architectures including cloud, on-premises, hybrid, and air-gapped environments.
Working knowledge of modern AI including LLMs, agentic systems, RAG, fine-tuning, and responsible AI frameworks, plus comfort discussing API integrations, model inference, data pipelines, and ML operations.
Deep understanding of how government organisations procure, evaluate, and deploy technology, with familiarity with UK government requirements including data sovereignty, privacy laws, accessibility standards, and security classifications.
Eligibility to obtain UK government security clearance, with active Top Secret clearance preferred; active Secret clearance or eligibility to obtain clearance will also be considered.
Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field; advanced degree or technical certifications are a plus.

What makes this role worth considering

This position offers the opportunity to work on high-impact AI deployments with direct influence on government and defence strategy. You will collaborate with specialized teams including Applied ML Engineering, Forward Deployed Engineering, and Product, while navigating some of the most technically complex and strategically important deployments in the enterprise AI space.