---
title: 'Technical Program Manager at Unconventional, Inc.'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/technical-program-manager-unconventional-inc-mountain-view-tma3gr8xy3pf'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-03'
---

# Technical Program Manager at Unconventional, Inc.

- **Company:** Unconventional, Inc.
- **Location:** Mountain View, CA
- **Posted:** 2026-10-28
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-03
- **Apply:** https://unconv.ai/careers/?gh_jid=4471125009

## Job description

Technical Program Manager

Location: MTV

## About Unconventional

We're a team of researchers and engineers, working across AI theory, silicon architecture, system modeling, agentic software, and AI systems. We tape out test chips every four months and release new models every six months. If that cadence sounds intense, it is. We're taking a big swing with big risk, and we need people who want to go deep on hard problems.

## The Role

We're looking for a Technical Program Manager to own hardware-software co-development across our test chip program. You'll be the connective tissue between silicon, architecture, systems, and software teams—driving rapid prototyping cycles that let us validate new AI architectures quickly and learn fast.

This role leads to owning program execution for our first product.

## Responsibilities

Drive test chip programs from architecture exploration through tapeout, bring-up, and characterization. You'll manage aggressive 4-month tapeout cycles, coordinating across silicon, hardware architecture, and systems teams.

Own hardware-software co-development schedules and dependencies. Our architecture is novel, which means software, compilers, and system integration are deeply intertwined with silicon decisions. You'll keep these workstreams synchronized.

Build and maintain the program infrastructure for rapid iteration—tracking experiments, capturing learnings, managing risk, and making tradeoffs visible so the team can move fast without losing coherence.

Work across AI theory, system modeling, and silicon teams to translate research directions into executable program plans. You'll need to understand what we're trying to learn from each test chip and structure the program around those goals.

Prepare the organization for product execution. As we move from prototyping toward our first product, you'll help evolve our program discipline from research velocity to production readiness.

## What We're Looking For

## Minimum qualifications

- 10+ years technical program management in silicon, systems, or ML infrastructure
- Strong written and verbal communication across highly technical teams
- BS/MS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field
- Experience with hardware-software codesign programs—AI accelerators, novel compute architectures, or research silicon

## Preferred qualifications

- Understanding of chip development lifecycle: architecture, RTL, tapeout, bring-up, validation
- Familiarity with compiler/runtime development and system software integration
- Fluency with agentic tools and AI-assisted workflows to scale program management without scaling headcount or meetings
- Comfort with ambiguity—you can build structure without imposing process that slows teams down
- Technical depth to engage credibly with chip architects, compiler engineers, and ML researchers
- Track record shipping in fast-moving environments: startups, research labs, or skunkworks programs

Why Join Us?

We're not building a better Von Neumann computer. We're building a different kind of computer based on a different understanding of what AI computation requires. The TPM role here isn't about tracking Gantt charts—it's about enabling a team of researchers and engineers to iterate fast on ideas that don't exist anywhere else.

## About Unconventional, Inc.

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Unconventional AI is rethinking the foundations of a computer to optimize energy efficiency for AI by building analog chips that run neural networks directly on physics rather than simulating digital logic.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage – raised $475M seed round)
- **Headquarters**: San Diego, California, United States (also has an office in San Francisco)
- **Founded**: Not explicitly stated; assumed ~2024/2025 based on funding announcement in December 2025
- **Founders**: Naveen Rao (CEO), Michael Carbin (co-founder), Sara Achour (co-founder), Meelan Lee (engineering leader)

## Core Business
- Primary industry/industries: Hardware design for artificial intelligence, analog computing, energy-efficient semiconductors
- Target customers: AI labs, hyperscalers, and enterprises that train and deploy large neural networks (B2B/Enterprise)
- Mission or purpose statement: *“Bringing biology-scale efficiency to artificial intelligence”* – building the right isomorphism for intelligence to unlock efficiency gains far beyond digital simulation

## Products & Services
- **Unconventional AI Chip Platform (in development)**: A novel analog/mixed-signal chip designed specifically for probabilistic AI workloads. The chip stores exact probability distributions in the physical substrate (silicon) rather than using numerical approximations, potentially achieving ~1,000x lower power consumption than digital computers. It is a **Hardware** product, supported by extreme codesign of algorithms and software.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: $4.5 billion (as of December 2025 – seed round valuation)
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding $475 million (seed round, December 2025)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Lightspeed Venture Partners (co-lead), Andreessen Horowitz (co-lead), Sequoia, Lux Capital, DCVC, Future Ventures, Jeff Bezos (individual), and others. CEO Naveen Rao personally invested $10 million.
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Named to 2026 CB Insights AI 100 list
  - Headcount of 23 employees with +10.8% monthly growth
  - Monthly website traffic 27,433 (+21.7% growth)
  - Highly active on LinkedIn with 9,516 followers and frequent technical blog posts
  - Launched the “Unconventional Grant” program – $500,000 in funding for bold research ideas in AI compute

## Competitive Advantages
- **First-principles approach**: Rejects digital abstraction for analog/physics-based computation, achieving orders-of-magnitude energy efficiency improvements that conventional GPU architectures cannot match.
- **Extreme codesign**: Hardware, software, algorithms, and models are co-optimized from day one, not adapted from legacy computing paradigms.
- **World-class team**: CEO Naveen Rao (prior exits: Nervana→Intel, Mosaic→Databricks) plus co-founders with deep expertise in AI systems, analog circuits, computing theory, and neuroscience.
- **Massive financial backing**: $475M seed round at a $4.5B valuation provides a long runway for ambitious R&D.

## Strategic Focus
- **Near-term priorities**: Design and tape-out of analog AI chips; recruit top interdisciplinary talent across hardware, software, algorithms, and neuroscience.
- **Long-term direction**: Achieve “biology-scale” energy efficiency (on the order of 20W for human-level intelligence) and scale to meet projected global AI compute demand that could outstrip energy supply within 3–4 years.
- **Research investment**: Active grant program and open collaboration with academic/unconventional thinkers.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Deeply interdisciplinary, first-principles culture that challenges assumptions – described as “endlessly curious, comfortable with discomfort, and drawn to the edge of chaos.”
- **Growth opportunity**: Very early-stage (only 23 employees) with massive ambition; employees can shape foundational technology from the ground up.
- **Remote/Hybrid**: Two offices (San Diego HQ and San Francisco); likely hybrid or on-site given hardware work, but not explicitly stated.
- **Perks & environment**: Small team, high ownership, access to top investors and mentors, and the chance to solve one of AI’s most critical bottlenecks (energy).
- **Talent sources**: Employees come from Databricks, MIT, Cohere, and other top AI/tech organizations – strong peer group.

## Sources
1. [unconv.ai](https://unconv.ai/)
2. [unconv.ai/careers](https://unconv.ai/careers/)
3. [unconv.ai/blog](https://unconv.ai/blog/introducing-unconventional-ai/)
4. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/unconvai)
5. [a16z.com](https://a16z.com/announcement/investing-in-unconventional/)

## Other roles at Unconventional, Inc.

- [Technical Recruiter](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-recruiter-unconventional-inc-mountain-view-ezqzga3g25cc) — Mountain View, CA / United States
- [Recruiting Coordinator](https://feeny.ai/job/recruiting-coordinator-unconventional-inc-mountain-view-q9sqk8rvts3r) — Mountain View, CA / United States
- [Member of Technical Staff - Cloud Infrastructure](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-cloud-infrastructure-unconventional-inc-mountain-view-k7c9dw2qrbp5) — Mountain View, CA / Greater Seattle Area
- [AI Silicon, Physical Design Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-silicon-physical-design-engineer-unconventional-inc-mountain-view-arrvvxe2d4vb) — Mountain View, CA
- [AI Silicon, Analog CAD Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-silicon-analog-cad-engineer-unconventional-inc-mountain-view-xv268aq0rz6r) — Mountain View, CA
- [AI Silicon, DFT Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-silicon-dft-engineer-unconventional-inc-mountain-view-qhkz4bax0ygs) — Mountain View, CA
- [Member of Technical Staff - AI Training Platform](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-ai-training-platform-unconventional-inc-mountain-view-d1g7x3es47d9) — Mountain View, CA / Greater Seattle Area
- [AI Systems, Model Optimization](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-systems-model-optimization-unconventional-inc-mountain-view-ca-i-bhb7nvk4vwfb) — Mountain View CA I, United States
- [AI Theory & Systems, Algorithms & Models](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-theory-systems-algorithms-models-unconventional-inc-mountain-view-f0vwf70pgvkv) — Mountain View, CA
- [AI Silicon, Silicon Validation Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-silicon-silicon-validation-engineer-unconventional-inc-mountain-view-bnzvp2npndhw) — Mountain View, CA