---
title: 'Program Manager, AI-native Physicist Fellowship at FirstPrinciples'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/program-manager-ai-native-physicist-fellowship-firstprinciples-ontario-pm7yp86jgxer'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-11'
---

# Program Manager, AI-native Physicist Fellowship at FirstPrinciples

- **Company:** FirstPrinciples
- **Location:** Ontario, Canada
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-05-12
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-11
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/firstprinciples/014d3d82-2cc0-40c5-be25-e1afb63e389f

## Job description

## About FirstPrinciples

FirstPrinciples Foundation is a non-profit organization focused on supporting emerging forms of AI-native scientific research and open scientific infrastructure. The Foundation’s work centers around programs, fellowships, and ecosystem-building efforts designed to help researchers explore how frontier AI systems may reshape the scientific process. The Foundation operates within the broader FirstPrinciples ecosystem, which is developing AI systems and research infrastructure designed to accelerate scientific discovery, including Theo, an AI-native platform for frontier scientific research. This ecosystem gives the Foundation a unique vantage point into how AI-native scientific workflows are beginning to emerge.

## Why This Role Exists

We’re launching a new category of scientific programs at the intersection of AI and frontier research, starting with the AI-native Physicist Fellowship. These programs are designed to support researchers developing rigorous AI-native scientific workflows and exploring what AI-native scientific discovery looks like in practice. This is not a traditional grants program. The fellowship is an early effort focused on understanding how frontier AI systems can be integrated into serious scientific research workflows. This role exists because these programs require strong operational ownership and active curation. We need someone who can identify high-potential researchers, run high-signal selection processes, build trusted relationships with fellows and advisors, and help create an outstanding experience for researchers working at the frontier of AI and science. You’ll sit at the center of the program: shaping the cohort, coordinating across advisors and internal teams, and ensuring fellows have the support, infrastructure, and context they need to do meaningful work.

## What You’ll Do

- Recruit and source exceptional fellows, researchers, and technical talent globally
- Define and manage the end-to-end fellowship application, review and selection process
- Coordinate and engage with the external advisory committee and reviewers
- Partner closely with the broader FirstPrinciples ecosystem’s technical and research teams to support fellows throughout the program
- Act as a primary operational point of contact for fellows during the fellowship lifecycle
- Organize cohort programming, workshops, onboarding, and communications
- Help refine program operations, processes, evaluation criteria and reporting as the program evolves
- Track and report on program metrics, timelines, budgets, deliverables, and cohort progress
- Build and maintain relationships across the AI + science ecosystem (research labs, universities, communities, conferences, frontier AI organizations, etc.)
- Identify emerging researchers, communities, and workflows at the edge of AI-native science
- Help shape and disseminate the long-term operational playbook for AI-native scientific programs

## Who You Are

- Strong experience in program management, operations, recruiting, community-building, talent programs, or ecosystem development
- Hold a PhD in Physics or related field
- Exceptional communicator capable of engaging credibly with researchers, technical teams, and external partners
- Highly organized and capable of managing multiple moving pieces simultaneously
- Comfortable operating in ambiguity and building processes from scratch
- Strong judgment and high ownership mentality
- Have a bias toward action. You move quickly, solve problems proactively, and figure things out in environments with limited precedent
- Experience working with technical or research-heavy teams is a strong plus
- Familiarity with frontier AI, scientific research, academia, startups, or technical communities is required. The ideal candidate has experience operating across multiple of these environments.
- Bonus points if you naturally gravitate toward identifying exceptional talent, emerging communities, or unconventional thinkers before broader institutions recognize them.

## Why Join

- Help shape one of the earliest large-scale AI-native scientific fellowship programs
- Work closely with frontier researchers, builders, and technical teams exploring the future of scientific discovery
- Operate at the intersection of AI, research, and frontier science
- Build programs that could meaningfully influence how future scientific research is conducted
- Help define a new category of scientific infrastructure for the AI era

## About FirstPrinciples

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: FirstPrinciples is a non-profit, AI-first research organization building an autonomous AI Physicist to accelerate fundamental physics discovery and advance humanity’s understanding of nature.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Non-profit) – funded by philanthropic grants (e.g., John Templeton Foundation)
- **Headquarters**: Toronto, Canada
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Ildar Shar

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Research Services / AI / Fundamental Physics
- **Target customers**: The scientific community and research institutions (B2 science); operates as a mission-driven open-science platform, not a commercial vendor.
- **Mission**: To unlock the transformative potential of fundamental science by building an open, autonomous research engine (the AI Physicist) that can generate and test novel theoretical frameworks – with a goal of unifying quantum field theory and general relativity by 2035.

## Products & Services
- **Theo (AI Physicist)**: An open-source, autonomous research engine that combines AI, symbolic reasoning, and self-directed research capabilities to explore theoretical physics and produce novel insights.
- **FirstPrinciples Fellowship Program**: A fixed-term, fully remote program for PhD/postdoctoral researchers in ML and physics to build core modules of the AI Physicist and help establish open scientific infrastructure.
- **Theo Collaborators Program**: A selective research collaboration that brings expert physicists into direct engagement with Theo to evaluate and improve its scientific reasoning.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Funding**: Not applicable (non‑profit). Received a philanthropic grant from the **John Templeton Foundation** – early institutional support for the AI Physicist.
- **Key Metric**: 27 employees (as of mid‑2026), with **140% year‑over-year headcount growth**; 7,042 LinkedIn followers.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: John Templeton Foundation; Scientific Advisory Board includes **Victor Galitski** (inaugural member) and **Yang-Hui He** (mathematical physicist).
- **Growth Signals**: Rapid team expansion (140% YoY), launch of Fellowship Program (January 2026), fully remote global operations with presence in Canada, US, and Belgium.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Mission‑driven, non‑profit, open‑source** model attracts top AI and physics talent who want impact over profit.
- **Long‑term vision** (2035 breakthrough) combined with startup‑like speed and iteration.
- **Unique interdisciplinary approach** – merges cutting‑edge AI with rigorous theoretical physics, guided by a world‑class Scientific Advisory Board.
- **Autonomous research loops** that go beyond data analysis to actively generate and test new scientific ideas.

## Strategic Focus
- Building and scaling the AI Physicist to achieve a breakthrough in fundamental physics (unification of QFT & GR).
- Expanding the research community through fellowships and collaborative programs (Theo Collaborators).
- Developing open scientific infrastructure and establishing new standards for AI‑driven discovery.
- Deepening collaborations with leading physicists and institutions.

## Why Work Here
- **Remote‑first culture** – a global collective where engineers, physicists, and AI researchers collaborate asynchronously.
- **Startup energy with non‑profit purpose** – fast iteration, low hierarchy, and direct impact on science.
- **Flexible work** – primarily remote; some hybrid options in Toronto.
- **Notable perks** (from careers page): fully remote positions available, entrepreneurial environment, and the chance to work on one of the most ambitious AI‑science projects today.
- **Roles available** (as of mid‑2026): MTS in DevOps/Infrastructure, Engineering, Research; Staff Physicist (Quantum Information); Training Engineer (Large Scale Foundation Models); Human‑AI Interaction Designer; Strategic Partnerships Manager; etc.

## Sources
1. [greenhouse.io](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/firstprinciples)
2. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/firstprinciples-foundation)
3. [linkedin.com](https://ca.linkedin.com/company/firstprinciplesfoundation)
4. [firstprinciples.org – Press](https://www.firstprinciples.org/press)
5. [firstprinciples.org – Fellowship announcement](https://www.firstprinciples.org/article/firstprinciples-launches-fellowship-program-for-researchers-in-ai-and-physics)

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