---
title: 'Technical Program Manager, Product Experience at Character.AI'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/technical-program-manager-product-experience-character-ai-redwood-city-m9zmhkmgt1qy'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-10'
---

# Technical Program Manager, Product Experience at Character.AI

- **Company:** Character.AI
- **Location:** Redwood City, CA
- **Compensation:** $200k–$300k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Posted:** 2026-06-30
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/character/56dcfddd-ba6d-48a8-81fb-3332abb1c032/application

**Skills:** Technical Program Management, Product Management, Technical Operations, SDLC, AI tools, Gemini, Agentic workflows

> Partner with the Chief Product Officer to ensure core development engines run seamlessly. This role involves owning end-to-end execution of major initiatives, eliminating blockers, and driving accountability across product, design, and engineering teams to scale team velocity.

## Job description

Character.AI is looking for a high-leverage, force-multiplying Technical Program Manager (TPM) to partner directly with our Chief Product Officer (CPO). In this role, you will operate across the entire product and design purview of the CPO to ensure our core development engines run seamlessly. This is not a traditional, rigid corporate TPM role. We are looking for someone with "fixer energy"—a relentless, high-agency problem-solver who possesses a founder's mindset, exceptional execution skills, and the technical weight to act as a core operational extension of the CPO. You will be the ultimate guardian of momentum: chasing down engineering bottlenecks, optimizing cross-functional roadmaps, and ensuring team velocity scales alongside our technology.

## Key Responsibilities

Operational Rigor & Technical Execution

- Keep the Trains Running on Time: Own the end-to-end execution of major initiatives under the CPO's umbrella, ensuring critical product, design, and engineering milestones are hit without friction.
- Eliminate Blockers: Proactively manage cross-functional dependencies across product, design, and engineering teams. Your primary metric of success is that development is never left stalling for information or decisions.
- Drive Accountability: Attend weekly core team meetings, capture critical technical notes, synthesize action items, and relentlessly chase down owners to ensure rigorous follow-through.
- Process Evolution: Analyze how teams are currently working and design/implement lightweight, scalable processes to improve cross-functional execution across the software development life cycle (SDLC).

Strategic Alignment & Technical Delivery

- Product & Design Sync: Build deep context on the CPO's vision and product strategy to seamlessly bridge the gap between creative design concepts and technical implementation.
- Unstructured Problem Solving: Roll up your sleeves to solve ambiguous, complex technical or operational problems that don't neatly fall into a single team's bucket.
- AI-Driven Workflows: Actively leverage AI tools (like Gemini) to optimize team workflows, ensure project knowledge is captured efficiently, and explore agentic workflows to enhance team intelligence.

## Who You Are

- Founder Energy & High Agency: You possess extreme ownership. You don't wait to be told what to do—you see a gap, you fill it, and you autonomously solve problems.
- Execution Machine: You have a strong background in technical program management, product management, or an intensive technical operations role where you have successfully navigated fast-moving tech roadmaps.
- High Cognitive Agility: You can pivot from a deep-dive technical alignment with engineers to high-level roadmap prioritization with design and product leaders in the span of an hour.
- Relentless Communicator: You are crisp, direct, and excellent at synthesis. You know how to get to the point quickly and ensure information flows seamlessly across the organization.
- AI-Curious: You have a genuine fascination with artificial intelligence and are eager to experiment with cutting-edge tools to optimize operational efficiency.

## Qualifications & Background

We care far more about your capability, trajectory, and "fixer energy" than a rigid checklist of past titles. You might be an incredible fit if you are a:

- Technical Program Manager (TPM) or Product Manager (PM) looking for a highly impactful, executive-facing execution role. Experience enabling product/design teams to become "AI-ready" is a major plus.
- Former Founder who loves the early-to-mid stage tech grind but wants to focus heavily on hyper-scale execution and organizational stability.
- Management Consulting Alum (particularly from technical or digital practices) with a proven track record of intensive work, extreme attention to detail, and cross-functional influence.
- Seasoned Operational Leader—a highly capable, mature operator who brings stability, structured execution, and mentorship to a fast-growing team.

## About Character.AI

[Character.AI](http://Character.AI) empowers people to connect, learn and tell stories through interactive entertainment. Over 20 million people visit [Character.AI](http://Character.AI) every month, using our technology to supercharge their creativity and imagination. Our platform lets users engage with tens of millions of characters, enjoy unlimited conversations, and embark on infinite adventures.

In just two years, we achieved unicorn status and were honored as Google Play's AI App of the Year—a testament to our innovative technology and visionary approach.

Join us and be a part of establishing this new entertainment paradigm while shaping the future of Consumer AI!

At Character, we value diversity and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. As an equal opportunity employer, we firmly uphold a non-discrimination policy based on race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, or disability. Your unique perspectives are vital to our success.

## About Character.AI

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Character.AI builds a full-stack, direct-to-consumer platform where users interact with AI-powered "Characters" for open-ended conversation, storytelling, and entertainment.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Venture Capital-Backed)
- **Headquarters**: Menlo Park, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2021
- **Founders**: Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Entertainment Software, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, SaaS (B2C)
- **Target customers**: B2C — millions of monthly active users seeking virtual companions, creative storytelling, and interactive entertainment.
- **Mission or purpose statement**: "Empower people to connect, learn, and tell stories through interactive entertainment."

## Products & Services
- **Character.AI Platform**: A web and mobile application that allows users to create, discover, and converse with AI Characters. The platform supports user-generated content, enabling users to build heroes, settings, stories, and challenges. It sits at the intersection of storytelling, gaming, social connection, and creative expression.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (latest known round: Secondary Transaction - Private, completed at "Generating Revenue" stage per PitchBook).
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding raised — **$193M** (Series A: $43.1M in 2022; Series A extension/round: $150M in March 2023).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Andreessen Horowitz, Google, Greycroft, SV Angel, Elad Gil, and 8 total investors. [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/characterai)
- **Growth Signals**: 
    - Millions of monthly active users.
    - Headcount of ~130 employees as of 2026.
    - Offices in Silicon Valley (HQ), Seattle, and New York.
    - The company completed a "Reverse Acqui-Hire" transaction, signaling strong talent acquisition interest from larger players.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Deep Technical Talent**: Founded by AI pioneers Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, who bring deep expertise in machine learning and natural language processing.
- **Full-Stack AI Platform**: Unlike many chatbot APIs, Character.AI owns the entire stack from model inference to consumer interface, giving them control over user experience and data.
- **Strong User Engagement & Community**: The platform has built a passionate community of creators and users who generate and share content, creating a network effect moat.
- **Brand Recognition**: One of the leading independent consumer AI platforms globally, with a clear identity as an entertainment-first product.

## Strategic Focus
- **AI-driven Entertainment**: The company is focused on redefining entertainment through generative AI, moving beyond simple chatbots into immersive, interactive experiences.
- **User-Generated Content (UGC)**: Empowering users to create their own characters and worlds is a core strategic priority, differentiating them from single-purpose AI tools.
- **Monetization & Scale**: Moving from a free product toward a sustainable business model (subscription tiers like c.ai+) while scaling the platform to serve a global user base.
- **Talent Acquisition**: Actively hiring across ML research, engineering, and safety to build out the next generation of their product.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-Driven Work**: Opportunity to work on cutting-edge generative AI and shape the future of entertainment for millions of users.
- **High-Impact Environment**: Described as a "small, passionate team" where individuals can have significant ownership and influence.
- **Strong Compensation**: Competitive salaries (e.g., Research Engineer, AI Safety & Alignment: $225K–$400K + equity). [jobs.ashbyhq.com](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/character/)
- **Comprehensive Benefits**:
    - **Parental Leave**: 20 weeks paid for birthing parents, 12 weeks for non-birthing parents.
    - **Retirement**: 401(k) match up to $5,875/year (25% of contributions up to IRS cap).
    - **Time Off**: 20 days accrued PTO, 12 company-paid holidays, plus accrued sick time.
    - **Health**: 100% premium coverage for medical (PPO or HSA), dental, and vision for employees; 80% for dependents. Life, AD&D, and LTD insurance fully covered.
    - **Perks**: Daily lunch in all offices, monthly DoorDash credit, monthly commuter allowance ($50), and a quarterly wellness stipend.
- **Work Policy**: Hybrid (offices in Menlo Park, Seattle, New York).
- **Culture Values**: "Users First" (users > company > team), "Think Transformational," and a focus on collaboration and high performance.

## Sources
1. [character.ai/about](https://character.ai/about)
2. [character.ai/careers](https://character.ai/careers)
3. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/character/](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/character/)
4. [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/characterai)
5. [pitchbook.com](https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/512290-54)

## Other roles at Character.AI

- [Principal Research Engineer, Post-Training](https://feeny.ai/job/principal-research-engineer-post-training-character-ai-redwood-city-92f6f7sk06h1) — Redwood City, CA
- [Technical Program Manager, Model Alignment and Deployment](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-program-manager-model-alignment-and-deployment-character-ai-redwood-brmkpc2gvra0) — Redwood City, CA
- [Staff Data Scientist, Monetization](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-data-scientist-monetization-character-ai-redwood-city-51hmwhgh6e2k) — Redwood City, CA
- [Technical Program Manager, AI Infrastructure](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-program-manager-ai-infrastructure-character-ai-redwood-city-3ty4trwmewr9) — Redwood City, CA
- [Software Engineer, Backend/Applied ML (Safety & Integrity)](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-backend-applied-ml-safety-integrity-character-ai-redwood-city-4q5mdjeptsz5) — Redwood City, CA
- [Software Engineer, Applied ML (Discovery, Recommendation & Search)](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-applied-ml-discovery-recommendation-search-character-ai-5r4a2m0v7fzq) — Redwood City, CA
- [Software Engineer, Backend](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-backend-character-ai-redwood-city-kx5x7rxznvz7) — Redwood City, CA
- [Software Engineer, Monetization](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-monetization-character-ai-redwood-city-4wjqzcp5e490) — Redwood City, CA
- [Software Engineer, Core Product](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-core-product-character-ai-redwood-city-h676pc9pz8k1) — Redwood City, CA
- [Research Engineer, AI Safety & Alignment](https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineer-ai-safety-alignment-character-ai-redwood-city-p2gtwtpvekg7) — Redwood City, CA