Project Manager, IT Project Manager, Project & Program Management

The Institute of Foundation Models (IFM) is seeking a Project Manager to oversee product and lab priorities in Abu Dhabi and help drive execution across research, product, and community initiatives.

This role focuses on orchestrating work rather than owning a single function: turning priorities into clear plans, keeping teams aligned, and ensuring follow-through on the tasks that move our models and products forward. A core part of this is coordinating model launches end to end – ensuring that research, engineering, product, marketing, and communications are aligned and ready when a model goes live.

The ideal candidate is structured, proactive, and comfortable working in a flat organization where everyone takes ownership and is willing to roll up their sleeves.

• Work with Research, Engineering and Product teams to translate high-level priorities into clear project plans, milestones, and timelines.
• Maintain an up-to-date view of product roadmaps for the Abu Dhabi lab, highlighting dependencies, risks, and decision points.
• Coordinate implementation for selected products or features, ensuring that requirements, designs, and technical work stay aligned.
• Facilitate regular check-ins (standups, sprint reviews, planning sessions) to keep projects on track and unblock teams.
• Ensure that key decisions, action items, and next steps are clearly captured and followed through.
• Own the end-to-end coordination of model launches (e.g., K2, JAIS, PAN): from research-to-production handoff through public release and post‑launch follow‑up.
• Work with Research and Engineering to track readiness milestones, resolve blockers, and ensure documentation and technical artifacts are in place before launch.
• Coordinate launch timelines and dependencies across Product, Engineering, Legal, and Marketing to ensure all teams are aligned and nothing slips through the cracks.
• Support operational readiness for launches, pilots, and external partnerships – ensuring the right assets, environments, and approvals are in place.
• Run launch retrospectives to capture lessons learned and improve the process for future releases.
• Serve as the coordination point between technical teams and Marketing/Communications (Mar Comms) for model launches, announcements, and external messaging.
• Ensure Mar Comms has timely access to technical details, key milestones, and positioning inputs needed to prepare launch materials, blog posts, and demos.
• Coordinate lab contributions to external events, conferences, and partner briefings – helping position IFM’s work effectively to outside audiences.
• Work with the Community team to ensure Abu Dhabi lab priorities are reflected in hackathons, workshops, open days, and partner programs.
• Serve as a coordination point for the Abu Dhabi lab: aligning work across engineering, product, community, and operations.
• Help prioritize lab initiatives and manage trade‑offs when competing priorities arise.
• Coordinate with other IFM sites (e.g., international labs) to synchronize timelines, share status, and reduce duplication.
• Maintain lightweight but reliable processes and tools for tracking work, while keeping bureaucracy low.
• Set up simple, transparent mechanisms to track progress on key initiatives.
• Prepare concise status updates for leadership and stakeholders, highlighting progress, risks, and decisions needed.
• Proactively identify blockers and drive them to resolution by pulling in the right people – not by escalating everything.
• Help the team continuously improve how it works: refine processes, simplify where possible, and share best practices across projects.

• 3–6 years of experience in project management, program management, product operations, or closely related roles in a technology, research, or product‑building environment.
• Proven track record of running cross‑functional projects end to end: from clarifying goals and scope, to planning, to execution and follow‑through.
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple parallel work streams, priorities, and stakeholders.
• Comfortable working with technical teams (researchers, engineers, product) and understanding basic technical concepts well…