Senior Program Manager, Cyngn
Release Management
$140-175k
Office located in Mountain View, CA
Industrial autonomous vehicle technology
Be an early applicant
Industrial autonomous vehicle technology
21-100 employees
Be an early applicant
$140-175k
Office located in Mountain View, CA
21-100 employees
Company mission
To address significant challenges facing industrial organizations today, such as labor shortages and costly safety incidents.
Role
Who you are
- This role is ideal for someone with 6+ years of experience in program or technical project management who can operate independently, influence without authority, and build the processes and infrastructure needed to reliably ship complex, safety-critical systems
- The ideal candidate combines deep release management expertise with a strategic perspective to align engineering, product, and customer-facing teams around shared delivery goals
- 6+ years of experience in program or project management within a technical environment, with direct ownership of release management processes
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical or Mechanical Engineering, or a related discipline; advanced degree a plus
- Proven ability to manage complex, multi-team programs involving both software and hardware components
- Deep experience with Jira administration, including workflow configuration, reporting, and cross-project coordination
- Strong command of Agile methodologies and SDLC practices, including experience adapting them to hardware-coupled development cycles
- Excellent communication and facilitation skills; able to drive alignment across engineering, product, and executive stakeholders
- Experience with autonomous systems, robotics, or other safety-critical industries strongly preferred
- Track record of bringing order to complex, fast-moving programs without slowing teams down
What the job involves
- We are seeking a Senior Program Manager to own the end-to-end release management process for our autonomous vehicle software and hardware systems and to drive cross-functional program execution at scale
- Own the release management lifecycle from planning through deployment, including release readiness criteria, go/no-go decisions, and post-release retrospectives
- Define and maintain release schedules that account for hardware/software dependencies, customer commitments, and regulatory requirements
- Serve as the central coordination point for all release-related activities across engineering, QA, product, and field operations
- Drive program-level planning, tracking, and risk management across multiple concurrent initiatives
- Develop and maintain release governance processes, including branching strategies, freeze windows, and rollback procedures in collaboration with engineering leads
- Identify systemic risks and blockers across programs and drive resolution with appropriate urgency and escalation
- Build and report on program and release KPIs, surfacing insights that inform leadership decisions on scope, schedule, and resource trade-offs
- Partner with product and engineering leadership to translate roadmap priorities into executable delivery plans
- Lead cross-functional release readiness reviews, integration testing coordination, and customer rollout sequencing
Our take
From the switch from manual driving to automatic in the 40s, and now the rise of autonomous vehicles (AVs) in the past 5-10 years, cars have come a long way. While much of the attention has focused on consumer-facing self-driving cars, it's often overlooked how many industrial vehicles are now capable of operating, at least in part, without direct driver control.
Cyngn is a well-established company providing autonomous vehicles solutions for these environments. Its DriveMod product is designed to integrate with existing workflows, allowing businesses to introduce automation without major infrastructure changes. Rather than focusing purely on capability, the company emphasizes practical deployment, aiming to deliver systems that can reliably handle real-world industrial tasks.
Cyngn has raised significant funding since its founding in 2009, reflecting both the strength of its technology and continued investor confidence. Alongside partnerships with companies like US Continental and Jtec Industries, the business is still actively securing new capital, with a recent $8.65M raise aimed at supporting further development and scaling its autonomous solutions,. With DriveMod already deployed across vehicles like tuggers and forklifts, Cyngn is positioning itself to capitalize on growing demand from industrial and logistics operators looking to address labor shortages and improve safety through automation.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
22% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)
Mar 2015
$85m
SERIES C
Dec 2013
$23m
SERIES B
Total funding: $115m
Company HQ
Mountain View, CA
Leadership
Lior Tal
(CEO)Lior joined Cyngn in 2016 as COO, moving into the role of CEO that same year. Previously, he spent over 5 years at Facebook as a Director of Growth & Partnerships. He also founded Snaptu where he served as the company's VP of Business Development for nearly 4 years.
Natalie Russell
(CFO)Natalie joined Cyngn in 2023 as the Director of Accounting, she then became the Interim CFO in January 2025 and became CFO later that same year. Previously, she was a Technical Accounting Manager at SOAProjects. She also spent over 5 years at EY in various Audit roles.
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