Technical Program Lead

At Walden Robotics, we envision a world where general-purpose robots dramatically improve the quality of life for all people—supporting us at home, at work, in factories, on farms, and beyond. To accomplish this, we are building a team of exceptional professionals who combine world-class technical skills with creative vision, grounded in humility and collaboration.

Position Summary:

We’re seeking a Technical Program Lead to drive execution and coordination across the entire engineering organization. You will report directly to the CTO, Ben Burchfiel (linkedin.com/in/benburchfiel), and operate as a force multiplier for technical leadership - ensuring tight coordination between departments, exceptional execution, and clear priorities, ownership, and accountability across all of engineering.

The role is roughly 75% technical program management and 25% chief-of-staff support to the CTO and senior technical leaders. It is high ownership and high trust, and has significant opportunity to scale in scope and responsibility as we grow.

Core Responsibilities:

• Own cross-functional execution, maintain the engineering roadmap, track dependencies and timelines across hardware, software, and AI, and surface blockers before they become problems.
• Run the operating cadence, own the weekly technical sync, drive the OKR process, and keep priorities, owners, and status clear across the org.
• Extend the CTO, manage context and information flow so the CTO and technical leadership team spend their time on the highest-leverage work. Prep decisions, track follow-through, and close loops.
• Build the execution machine, design lightweight processes, trackers, and workflows, human and AI, that let the team move fast without losing coordination.
• Ensure outward visibility into what matters, so the most important status and updates from the technical org are surfaced across the company.

Required Qualifications:

• 8+ years of experience in highly demanding high-ownership roles such as startups, technology companies, or consulting with a track record of delivering high-quality outcomes through tight timelines and challenging constraints
• Hands-on technical grounding in at least one of robotics, AI, autonomous driving, or a related deep-tech field, and the ability to ramp quickly on new technologies.
• Phenomenal written and verbal communication skills and a talent for separating signal from noise to provide clarity and focus on what’s most important.
• Experience leading tightly coupled cross-functional initiatives across multiple technical teams.
• Outcome obsessed and able to balance short and long-term priorities to drive rapid scalable and sustainable improvement.
• Strong judgment, high ownership, and follow-through you do not have to check on.
• Passionate about building at the frontier of robotics and physical AI alongside one of the best teams in the world.

Walden Robotics offers a competitive total compensation program, including salary, annual cash bonus, company equity, company-subsidized insurance programs, 401(k) with company match, flexible PTO, daily lunch, and other benefits. The pay ranges noted on our posts are for salary only.

Walden Robotics is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations, and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request to [email protected].

Walden Robotics participates in E-Verify. If you receive an offer of employment from Walden, you will need to go through the E-Verify process of digital verification of your employment authorization documents as provided on the Form I-9. Participation in E-Verify does not limit your right to work and verification will only be completed after you become an employee with Walden Robotics.