Software Technical Program Manager

Position Overview
We're looking for a Software Technical PM to own the day‑to‑day planning, execution management, and coordination of complex software development projects at Axelera AI. Working across multiple software sub‑teams (Runtime, ML, Compiler, Backend, SWD, Apps), the Software Technical PM is responsible for turning high‑level project objectives into detailed execution plans, ensuring every task and dependency has a named technical owner, driving those plans through to delivery, and proactively surfacing cross‑team risks and roadblocks so that the right people can resolve them.
This is a hands‑on execution management role, not a reporting role and not a technical leadership role. The core of the work is building plans with engineers, tracking progress at the task level, running integration and coordination cadences, ensuring technical ownership is assigned and visible, making informed trade‑off recommendations, and ensuring that cross‑team dependencies are managed. Technical decisions and technical problem‑solving remain with engineering.

Status reporting and dashboards are outputs of the management activity.
The Software Technical PM works as part of the programme management team. Project assignments are determined by programme complexity and risk, with the initial focus on LLM/generative AI enablement for Voyager SDK.
Key responsibilities

End‑to‑end execution management of assigned complex software projects from planning through delivery, working across multiple software sub‑teams simultaneously.
Build and maintain detailed project plans at the task and dependency level, working directly with engineering sub‑team leads to establish realistic estimates, identify dependencies, and define integration milestones. Ensure every task has a named technical owner.
Drive the planning and coordination of the integration process for assigned projects: work with engineering leads to define the integration strategy (phased vs. consolidated), identify who owns the shared integration environment, ensure integration milestones are agreed and tracked, and escalate when integration tasks lack clear technical ownership or are falling behind.
Ensure explicit definition‑of‑done criteria are established for each project phase (functional correctness gate, performance gate, release readiness). Drive the process to get engineering and product stakeholders to agree these criteria before work begins. Track progress against agreed criteria rather than informal assumptions.
Run daily or appropriate‑cadence coordination standups for assigned projects, ensuring status is communicated publicly, blockers are identified within 24 hours, and ownership of resolution is assigned to a named engineer and tracked to completion.
Track estimation accuracy and delivery predictability at the task level. Identify patterns of optimistic estimation early, make them visible to teams and leadership, and work with engineering leads to adopt more realistic estimation practices.
Identify single‑person critical path dependencies and escalate to engineering leads to establish backup coverage on critical path components.
Prepare and maintain project‑level status views, risk registers, and decision logs that give programme leadership an accurate, real‑time picture of project health.
Contribute to programme‑level process improvements based on lessons learned from project execution, including estimation calibration, integration planning practices, and cross‑team communication standards.
Work with the Software Program Manager to ensure assigned project plans are aligned with the overall release roadmap, PI planning cycle, and portfolio priorities.

Qualifications

3‑5 years of experience in technical programme or project management within a software‑intensive technology organisation, preferably in semiconductor tool chains, compilers, AI/ML frameworks, or embedded systems software.
Demonstrated experience coordinating cross‑team software integration efforts involving multiple codebases, build systems, and testing environments converging on a single deliverable. Experience driving accountability for integration tasks across teams without owning the…