The Institute of Foundation Models (IFM) is seeking a Project Manager to oversee product and lab priorities in Abu Dhabi and help drive execution across research, product, and community initiatives.
This role focuses on orchestrating work rather than owning a single function: turning priorities into clear plans, keeping teams aligned, and ensuring follow-through on the tasks that move our models and products forward. A core part of this is coordinating model launches end to end – ensuring that research, engineering, product, marketing, and communications are aligned and ready when a model goes live.
The ideal candidate is structured, proactive, and comfortable working in a flat organization where everyone takes ownership and is willing to roll up their sleeves.
Key Responsibilities
Product & Project Orchestration
- Work with Research, Engineering and Product teams to translate high-level priorities into clear project plans, milestones, and timelines.
- Maintain an up-to-date view of product roadmaps for the Abu Dhabi lab, highlighting dependencies, risks, and decision points.
- Coordinate implementation for selected products or features, ensuring that requirements, designs, and technical work stay aligned.
- Facilitate regular check-ins (standups, sprint reviews, planning sessions) to keep projects on track and unblock teams.
- Ensure that key decisions, action items, and next steps are clearly captured and followed through.
Model Launch Coordination
- Own the end-to-end coordination of model launches (e.g., K2, JAIS, PAN): from research-to-production handoff through public release and post-launch follow-up.
- Work with Research and Engineering to track readiness milestones, resolve blockers, and ensure documentation and technical artifacts are in place before launch.
- Coordinate launch timelines and dependencies across Product, Engineering, Legal, and Marketing to ensure all teams are aligned and nothing slips through the cracks.
- Support operational readiness for launches, pilots, and external partnerships – ensuring the right assets, environments, and approvals are in place.
- Run launch retrospectives to capture lessons learned and improve the process for future releases.
Marketing & Communications Liaison
- Serve as the coordination point between technical teams and Marketing/Communications (MarComms) for model launches, announcements, and external messaging.
- Ensure MarComms has timely access to technical details, key milestones, and positioning inputs needed to prepare launch materials, blog posts, and demos.
- Coordinate lab contributions to external events, conferences, and partner briefings – helping position IFM’s work effectively to outside audiences.
- Work with the Community team to ensure Abu Dhabi lab priorities are reflected in hackathons, workshops, open days, and partner programs.
Lab Operations & Cross-Team Coordination
- Serve as a coordination point for the Abu Dhabi lab: aligning work across engineering, product, community, and operations.
- Help prioritize lab initiatives and manage trade-offs when competing priorities arise.
- Coordinate with other IFM sites (e.g., international labs) to synchronize timelines, share status, and reduce duplication.
- Maintain lightweight but reliable processes and tools for tracking work, while keeping bureaucracy low.
Execution, Tracking & Reporting
- Set up simple, transparent mechanisms to track progress on key initiatives.
- Prepare concise status updates for leadership and stakeholders, highlighting progress, risks, and decisions needed.
- Proactively identify blockers and drive them to resolution by pulling in the right people – not by escalating everything.
- Help the team continuously improve how it works: refine processes, simplify where possible, and share best practices across projects.
Essential Experience
- 3–6 years of experience in project management, program management, product operations, or closely related roles in a technology, research, or product-building environment.
- Proven track record of running cross-functional projects end to end: from clarifying goals and scope, to planning, to execution and follow-through.
- Strong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple parallel workstreams, priorities, and stakeholders.
- Comfortable working with technical teams (researchers, engineers, product) and understanding basic technical concepts well enough to manage timelines, dependencies, and risks.
- Clear and concise communicator, able to summarize complex work into simple updates for different audiences (leadership, partners, internal teams).
- Demonstrated ability to work in a flat, fast-moving environment – taking ownership, adapting to changing priorities, and doing what is needed to keep work moving.
Preferred Experience
- Experience in AI/ML, deep-tech, or research lab environments where projects involve both exploration and delivery.
- Experience coordinating product or model launches – including cross-functional readiness, external communications, and post-launch follow-up.
- Familiarity with product development lifecycles (from discovery and prototyping to launch and iteration).
- Exposure to foundation models, large-scale AI systems, or similar technologies (formal expertise not required, but curiosity and willingness to learn are important).
- Comfort working across technical and non-technical audiences, including marketing, communications, and executive stakeholders.
Academic Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field preferred.
