We’re Blue River, a team of innovators driven to create intelligent machinery that solves monumental problems for our customers. We empower our customers – farmers, construction crews, and foresters - to implement safer and more sustainable solutions, driving increased profitability with less reliance on scarce labor. We believe that focusing on the small stuff – pixel-by-pixel and task-by-task - leads to big gains. With our partners at John Deere, we have the ability to bring innovative computer vision, machine learning, robotics, and product management solutions to scale production, maximizing their potential impact.
Our people are at the heart of what we do. Through cross-discipline collaboration, this mission-driven and daring team is eager to define the new frontier of mobile robotics. We are always asking hard questions, rapidly iterating, and getting our boots in the field and on-site to figure it out. We won’t give up until we’ve made a tangible and positive impact on the planet.
Our office is located in Santa Clara, CA, and is home to 100+ team members with diverse experience including robotics, computer vision, and machine learning. Our working environment is fast-paced and highly collaborative, and employees are able to use their talents to build a sustainable future at the intersection of the environment and humanity.
Summary
We’re seeking a highly experienced Sr Technical Program Manager to join our Platform Team. This team is responsible for building the platforms that are essential for other program teams at Blue River to develop autonomy and automation products more efficiently. The platforms support various product lines, enabling autonomy and automation product teams to build, train, and operate intelligent machines at scale. If you’re intellectually curious, learn quickly, and are motivated to work on high-impact projects – we want to hear from you!
Job Responsibilities
- Leadership & Ownership: Lead the planning and development efforts for multiple products in the Platform Team, driving strategic and scalable solutions that facilitate the development, training, and operation of intelligent machines in production environments.
- Stakeholder Communication: Manage communication with stakeholders and cross-functional teams, ensuring clear understanding and alignment across multiple teams and product lines.
- Program Management: Bootstrap programs in ambiguous areas, managing multiple cross-organizational or cross-company interdependencies. Drive cross-organizational teams to own and execute large-scale workstreams to meet goals.
- Platform Product Development: Bring extensive experience in building platform products for internal consumption within a company, specifically in robotics, autonomy, and machine learning.
- Planning Expertise: Demonstrate end-to-end ownership and thought leadership across multiple, cross-functional programs, influencing strategic direction and impacting short & long-term plans.
- Issue Resolution: Be a roadblock smasher, helping teams achieve clarity from ambiguous situations, and resolving intra-organizational issues effectively.
- Technical Excellence: Drive technical excellence within the team, coordinating and contributing to engineering deliverables including architectural diagrams, specifications, launch criteria, and test plans.
- Process Improvement: Work cross-functionally to develop best practices and development processes in a dynamic environment, driving impact through the deployment of key initiatives and garnering adoption of those processes.
Required Experience & Skills
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, or relevant fields.
- 7+ years of technical program management, software engineering, or systems engineering experience.
- Experience managing multiple products and teams in a product portfolio.
- Proficiency with agile project management tools such as Jira and Confluence.
- Experience working on projects with a technical customer base and a focus on great developer experience.
- Analytical and problem-solving skills with large-scale systems.
- Excellent communication, time management, and prioritization skills.
- Project Management Certification: PMP, Scrum Master, or other relevant project management certifications.
- Strong Understanding of DevOps Practices: Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines, automation, and infrastructure as code.
- Experience with System Design and Architecture: Ability to understand and contribute to high-level system design discussions.
- Proficiency in Software Development Methodologies: Strong understanding of agile, lean, and other software development methodologies.
- Budget Management: Experience managing budgets and resources for large-scale projects.
Preferred Experience & Skills
- Background in computer vision, machine learning, and/or robotics
- Experience managing platforms in robotics, autonomy, and machine learning is a plus.
- Experience with cloud-based full-stack engineering development, including frontend, backend, and infrastructure.
- Understanding of security best practices and methods for cloud-based and customer-owned hardware.
- Understanding of Compliance and Regulatory Requirements: Knowledge of industry-specific compliance and regulatory standards.
- Business Acumen: Understanding of business strategy and how technology drives business goals.
- User Experience (UX) Design Knowledge: Basic knowledge of UX principles and how to incorporate user feedback into product design.
- Industry Experience: Previous experience in the agricultural technology industry or similar fields.
At Blue River, we’re passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity. While we have more work to do to advance diversity and inclusion, we’re investing in our programs, including recruiting, mentorship, career development, and learning & development to ensure they support our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion goals. We support each employee in living a full life, enabling a thriving career, and accomplishing a meaningful, challenging mission while collaborating with incredible people. We are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align completely with the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. We are an equal-opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, perform essential job functions, and receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request an accommodation.
The US annual base salary range for this position is $133,000 - $238,000, along with eligibility for Blue River’s bonus and benefit programs.
Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your location during the hiring process. During the recruitment process, we may identify an alternative role or level to which you are more suited. If your ideal role at Blue River differs from the advertised position, we will provide an updated pay range as soon as possible during the hiring process.
