About SLM
SLM is a compute infrastructure company building supercapability systems. We're developing new classes of high-performance architectures that deliver unmatched performance, precision, and physical resilience in extreme environments — and we're doing it on an accelerated timeline with hard deployment deadlines that our customers and partners cannot move.
Our first-generation systems target scientific instrumentation with hard deployment windows that won't reopen for years or close to more than a decade. This comes with substantial technical challenges: advanced semiconductor processes, specialized memory technologies, multi-die integration, comprehensive radiation qualification, and software and programming models that can scale to changing, resource-intensive hardware requirements — but the program execution challenges are equally demanding. We're coordinating across foundry partners, assembly houses, test facilities, and technology vendors while maintaining the velocity needed to hit immovable deployment windows.
This is a small, exceptional team executing on a multi-year technical roadmap with near-term customer commitments and special infrastructure project deliverables. You'll manage programs where delays cascade through complex dependencies, where manufacturing partnerships need to be established with specialized vendors, where qualification requirements are stringent and testing infrastructure is limited. The work is highly involved, the coordination is constant, and the mission matters. This will be a very rewarding assignment at a national-interest company building capabilities for complex missions and high-cost, precious industrial assets.
About this role
You'll drive execution of hardware development programs with aggressive schedules and hard customer commitments, owning cross-functional coordination across silicon design, packaging, software, qualification, and deployment while maintaining the velocity required to hit deployment windows that won't reopen for years.
This means tracking critical path activities across multiple parallel work streams: RTL development and verification, physical design and tapeout, foundry fabrication, assembly and test, software toolchain development, radiation qualification campaigns. You'll identify dependencies and schedule risks before they become blockers, coordinate resource allocation when teams are oversubscribed, and escalate technical or business issues that require executive decisions. You'll manage complex manufacturing partnerships: negotiating schedules with foundries who have limited capacity, establishing relationships with specialized assembly houses, coordinating test campaigns at facilities with limited availability.
The technical complexity our systems is substantial. You need to understand the work well enough to ask the right questions, recognize when technical risks are being understated, and facilitate decisions when tradeoffs don't have obvious answers. You'll work closely with technical leads to develop realistic schedules that account for iteration cycles, maintain program dashboards that provide visibility into status and risks, and run cross-functional reviews where teams coordinate dependencies and resolve conflicts.
The timeline pressure is also constant. You'll make pragmatic decisions about scope versus schedule, coordinate rapid response when testing reveals issues that require design changes, and maintain team focus on critical path activities when there are dozens of important things competing for attention. You'll work with customers and stakeholders to manage expectations, communicate schedule risks transparently, and negotiate solutions when reality differs from the plan.
What we're looking for
- Extensive semiconductor program management experience with a track record of delivering complex hardware programs on schedule.
- You've managed tapeouts, coordinated manufacturing partnerships with foundries and OSATs, and driven programs through qualification and production.
- You understand semiconductor development well enough, or can acquire strong strategic insight, to recognize technical risks, facilitate tradeoff discussions, and maintain realistic schedules that account for the iteration cycles inherent in hardware development.
Experience with aerospace or high-reliability systems is valuable - you understand the qualification requirements and quality standards the team needs to meet. If you've worked on programs with hard external deadlines (customer commitments, launch windows, contractual milestones), you understand the intensity and focus required. Comfort with structured risk management frameworks and transparent reporting is essential.
We're looking for someone who can combine technical depth with excellent communication skills, who can coordinate effectively across disciplines and organizations, who maintains calm under pressure, who will take absolute product and mission ownership, and who drives strong execution without becoming a bottleneck.
What we offer
As an early team member, you'll shape capabilities and systems with first-order consequences for the future and direction of humanity's enterprise.
This is accompanied by a strong equity package, competitive base salary, and comprehensive benefits including enhanced healthcare coverage for you and your family, robust family planning support, life insurance, flexible time off and paid holidays, retirement plans with matching, daily meals at our headquarters, and relocation support.
Our primary operational base is in Northern California, and our labs are headquartered in a part of the city set beside cypress groves and coastal trails. Think natural light, fresh ocean air, and panoramic views. We work intensely but deliberately invest in removing avoidable frictions from your life so you can dedicate maximum bandwidth to your core work.
If we make you an offer, we will work hard to get you onto our team and can even sponsor visas and green cards once eligible.
We strongly encourage you to apply even if you feel you don't meet every qualification or attribute as described. We care more about evidence of strong ability and a high signal-to-noise ratio.
Role details
- Category: Program Management & Operations
- Role: Technical Program Manager
- Work type: On-site
- Employment: Full-time
- Location: Northern California
- Salary range: $200,000 - $280,000