Technical Program Manager, AI Delivery for Public Sector & Defense, France
France • FullTime
Posted 10d ago
About the job
Cohere is seeking an experienced Program Manager to join its customer-facing Program Management team, focusing on public sector and defense accounts in Europe, particularly in France. This specialized role requires an individual who understands technical program delivery, the complexity of frontier AI models, and the unique requirements of government and defense organizations. You will act as the critical bridge between Cohere's AI capabilities and the needs of Ministries, Agencies, and defense organizations across Europe, navigating complex procurement processes, security requirements, data sovereignty, and regulatory compliance to ensure successful deployment and scaling of AI solutions. You will collaborate with various internal teams, serving as the technical program lead and trusted advisor for sensitive government and defense engagements.
Responsibilities
- Own end-to-end technical program delivery for French and European public sector and defense customers.
- Serve as the primary technical program point of contact for customers, building trusted relationships.
- Translate complex public sector and defense requirements into actionable engineering plans.
- Navigate complex procurement processes, RFP responses, and contractual technical obligations.
- Provide clear and timely communication across Cohere's engineering organization and customer stakeholders.
- Translate between AI/ML technical concepts and government-appropriate language.
- Present technical roadmaps and status updates to senior stakeholders.
- Represent Cohere's technical capabilities in sensitive government and defense contexts.
- Create and manage project schedules accounting for public sector and defense timelines and approval cycles.
- Identify and manage dependencies across government departments, security authorities, cloud providers, and internal teams.
- Navigate risks unique to government and defense deployments.
- Drive alignment between product development priorities and specific customer requirements.
- Ensure on-time delivery of AI solutions meeting security, privacy, accessibility, and performance standards.
- Coordinate technical work across multiple teams for model customization, security hardening, integration, and support.
- Establish governance checkpoints for high-stakes government and defense deployments.
- Problem-solve complex technical challenges in regulated environments.
Requirements
- 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 skills.
- Experience working with government, defense, or heavily regulated customers.
- Proven track record managing complex, multi-stakeholder technical programs with stringent compliance requirements.
- Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field.
- 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.
- Comfortable discussing API integrations, model inference, data pipelines, and ML operations.
- Deep understanding of how government and defense organizations procure, evaluate, and deploy technology.
- Familiarity with European government requirements: data sovereignty, privacy laws, accessibility standards, official languages obligations, security classifications.
- Understanding of defense and national security considerations in AI deployment.
- Experience with Algorithmic Impact Assessments or AI ethics.
- Must be a French citizen living in France.
- Fluency in French is required.
- Active French Secret clearance is preferred; candidates eligible and willing to obtain clearance will be considered.