Senior Staff R&D Technical Project Manager Design

Crusoe is a vertically integrated AI infrastructure company with a mission to accelerate the abundance of energy and intelligence. Our competitive advantage—“Speed is the only moat”—is directly tied to our ability to rapidly design, manufacture, and deploy our own modular power and compute infrastructure.

We are seeking a Technical Program Manager to join our R&D organization and drive programs that evaluate and advance the next generation of AI data center technologies. You will manage initiatives that span multiple engineering disciplines—from early-stage technology evaluations and partnerships with emerging startups and industry providers, through pilot-scale validation and production handoff for hyperscale deployment.

Crusoe’s R&D team exists to look around corners: identifying the technologies and design approaches that will define future data center platforms, testing them rigorously, and delivering validated solutions to the engineering teams that build and deploy our infrastructure. As a TPM in his team, you will be the operational backbone of that process—coordinating across R&D, engineering, external technology partners, and leadership to drive programs from concept through pilot to hyperscale readiness.

R&D Program Execution: Own and drive R&D programs end-to-end—from early-stage technology evaluation and partner engagement through pilot-scale deployment and production handoff for hyperscale rollout. Bring structure, rigor, and pace to programs that are inherently exploratory.

Engineering Team Partnership: Serve as R&D’s program interface to engineering teams across the company. Coordinate joint planning, manage shared initiative pipelines, and ensure R&D outputs are aligned with the needs of the teams building and deploying infrastructure.

Technology Evaluation Support: Coordinate the operational aspects of technology evaluations: vendor engagements, test protocols, data collection, success criteria, and structured go/no-go decision frameworks. Ensure evaluations are completed on schedule with clear, documented outcomes.

External Partner Management: Manage relationships with external technology vendors, emerging startups, design firms, and development partners engaged in R&D programs. Own scope definition, deliverable quality, schedule accountability, contracts, and commercial terms. Help coordinate joint evaluations and pilot programs with industry and research partners.

Cross-Functional Coordination: Drive alignment across R&D, engineering, operations, and leadership stakeholders. Translate technical complexity into clear program milestones, risk registers, and decision points that enable rapid execution.

Program Reporting: Maintain program status visibility through regular reporting to R&D leadership and engineering stakeholders. Proactively identify and escalate risks and blockers.

Technical Documentation: Ensure R&D programs produce comprehensive documentation—including technical assessments, pilot results, vendor evaluations, and production handoff packages—that enable engineering teams to adopt and scale R&D-validated solutions.

Experience: 7+ years of progressive experience in technical program management, project management, or systems engineering, with a meaningful portion in data center infrastructure, manufacturing, or related industrial environments.

Technical Background: Engineering degree or equivalent technical foundation. You started your career as an engineer and transitioned into program management—you bring genuine technical fluency to every conversation, not just process discipline.

Data Center Knowledge: Working familiarity with data center infrastructure—power distribution, cooling systems, facility design, or compute/networking. You can engage credibly with engineers across these domains and ask the right questions.

Program Execution: Demonstrated track record of delivering complex, cross-functional programs on time. Comfortable managing ambiguity, competing priorities, and multiple concurrent workstreams.

Vendor Management: Experience managing external vendors, contractors, or design partners including contract negotiation, scope management, and delivery accountability.

Communication: Strong written and verbal communication skills. Ability to translate technical program details into clear executive summaries and to facilitate productive discussions across diverse engineering disciplines.

Direct experience in data center construction, commissioning, or operations.

Background in manufacturing environments, particularly modular or containerized systems.

Experience with power systems, cooling technologies, or high-performance computing infrastructure.

PMP certification or equivalent program management credential.

Experience at a hyperscale cloud provider, major data center operator, or data center design/construction firm.

Prior experience in an R&D, advanced engineering, or new product introduction (NPI) environment.