Technical Program Manager, AI Delivery for Public Sector & Defense, France

The role

You will lead technical program delivery for French and European public sector and defence customers. You will act as a bridge between AI capabilities and the needs of government agencies, managing complex procurement, security, and deployment requirements.

What you will do

• Own end-to-end technical program delivery for public sector and defence customers
• Serve as the primary technical program point of contact for customers
• Translate public sector and defence requirements into actionable engineering plans
• Navigate complex procurement processes, RFP responses, and contractual obligations
• Provide communication across engineering, customer stakeholders, and government leadership
• Translate AI/ML technical concepts for non-technical decision-makers
• Present technical roadmaps and status updates to senior stakeholders
• Create and manage project schedules accounting for security reviews and approval cycles
• Identify and manage dependencies across government departments and internal teams
• Ensure on-time delivery of AI solutions meeting security, privacy, and performance standards

Required qualifications

• 6+ years of experience as a customer-facing Technical or Engineering Program Manager in AI/ML consulting, technology transformation, or enterprise software delivery
• Excellent executive communication and stakeholder management
• Experience working with government, defence, or heavily regulated customers
• Proven track record managing complex, multi-stakeholder technical programs with stringent compliance requirements
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field
• Strong understanding of enterprise software deployment architectures (cloud, on-premises, hybrid, air-gapped)
• Comfortable discussing API integrations, model inference, data pipelines, and ML operations
• Deep understanding of how government and defence organisations procure, evaluate, and deploy technology
• Familiarity with European government requirements: data sovereignty, privacy laws, accessibility standards, official languages obligations, security classifications
• Understanding of defence and national security considerations in AI deployment

Nice to have

• advanced degree or technical certs
• Working knowledge of or experience with modern AI: LLMs, agentic systems, MCP, RAG, fine-tuning, evals, and responsible AI
• Experience with Algorithmic Impact Assessments or AI ethics frameworks
• Active French security clearance (Secret or Top Secret)
• Bilingual (English/French) proficiency
• Background in or strong familiarity with European defence, intelligence, or critical infrastructure sectors
• Experience with GC Cloud services (Azure, AWS GovCloud) or Protected B/C environments
• Project management certification (PMP, PgMP) or government-specific methodologies

Benefits

• Weekly lunch stipend of $75/£75 or equivalent
• Full health and dental benefits
• Separate budget for mental health
• RRSP matching, 401K, Pension Scheme
• 100% Parental Leave top-up for up to 6 months
• Annual enrichment benefits: Arts & culture, fitness/wellness, quality time, and a workspace improvement credit
• Education & learning stipend for conferences, courses, and coaching
• 6 weeks of paid vacation
• Budget for traveling to other offices if remote
• Annual company offsite
• Co-working benefit for those not near an office
• $500 home office stipend

Before you apply

• Must be a French citizen living in France
• Must be fluent in French
• Must be eligible to obtain French security clearance

About the company

Cohere is a leading security-first enterprise AI company that builds foundation AI models and end-to-end products. It is a global technology company headquartered in Toronto.