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Job Description & How to Apply Below
Engineering Program Manager, Public Sector & Defence Join Cohere as an Engineering Program Manager focused on Canadian public sector and defence accounts.
About Cohere Our mission is to scale intelligence to serve humanity. We’re training and deploying frontier models for developers and enterprises who are building AI systems to power magical experiences such as content generation, semantic search, RAG, and agents.
Why This Role?
We’re seeking an experienced Engineering Program Manager to join our customer‑facing Engineering Program Management team, focusing on Canadian public sector and defence accounts. You will bridge our frontier AI capabilities with the needs of federal departments, provincial agencies, Crown corporations, and defence organizations.
Location Ottawa or Toronto required (proximity to government customers).
Security Clearance Active Top Secret clearance strongly preferred. Eligibility and willingness to obtain clearance also considered.
Responsibilities Customer Program Leadership
Own end-to-end technical program delivery for Canadian public sector and defence customers, from initial deployment through production scaling
Serve as the primary technical program point of contact for government customers, building trusted relationships with departmental CIOs, IT directors, and technical teams
Translate complex government requirements (security, compliance, accessibility, bilingualism, data sovereignty) into actionable engineering plans
Navigate government procurement processes, RFP responses, and contractual technical obligations
Strategic Communication
Provide clear, timely, and objective communication across Cohere’s engineering organization, customer stakeholders, and government leadership
Translate between AI/ML technical concepts and government‑appropriate language for decision‑makers who may not have deep technical backgrounds
Present technical roadmaps and status updates to senior government officials and departmental executives
Represent Cohere’s technical capabilities in sensitive government and defence contexts
Complex Program Management
Create and manage project schedules that account for government timelines, security review processes, and ministerial approval cycles
Identify and manage dependencies across government departments, security authorities, cloud service providers, and internal Cohere teams
Navigate risks unique to government deployments: privacy compliance, Algorithmic Impact Assessments, Treasury Board submissions, security authorizations
Drive alignment between product development priorities and specific government requirements
Technical Delivery & Execution
Ensure on‑time delivery of AI solutions that meet government‑grade security, privacy, accessibility, and performance standards
Coordinate technical work across multiple teams: model customization, security hardening, integration with government systems, bilingual support
Establish governance checkpoints appropriate for high‑stakes government deployments
Problem‑solve complex technical challenges in air‑gapped, on‑premises, or highly regulated environments
Qualifications Required Experience
7+ years of experience as an Engineering or Technical Program Manager
At least 2 years in customer‑facing technical delivery and operations for enterprise‑grade software or AI/ML solutions
Experience working with government, defence, or heavily regulated customers (public sector, defence contractors)
Proven track record managing complex, multi‑stakeholder technical programs with stringent compliance requirements
Technical Background
Strong understanding of enterprise software deployment architectures (cloud, on‑premises, hybrid, air‑gapped)
Knowledge of or experience with LLM training, fine‑tuning, or deployment would be a strong differentiator
Comfortable discussing API integrations, model inference, data pipelines, and ML operations with technical stakeholders
Government & Defence Acumen
Deep understanding of how government organizations procure, evaluate, and deploy technology
Familiarity with Canadian government requirements: data sovereignty, privacy laws (Privacy Act), accessibility standards, official language obligations,…
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