Strategy and Operations Manager / Senior Manager, Institute of Computation (12 month contract)

What You Will Contribute To Altos

We’re looking for a Strategy & Operations Manager / Senior Manager to work directly with the Chief of Staff, Director to build the strategic planning and operational backbone for the Institute of Computation, which serves as the AI and data science organization at Altos Labs. The IoC develops and advances AI tools, models and technology to unravel the mechanisms behind aging to develop therapeutic ways to reverse it. This role sits at the intersection of strategy and business operations, technical program management, and product-minded thinking.

You’ll work closely with the Chief of Staff, SVP, engineering  and AI leaders, Director of Program Management, and our data and computing infrastructure teams to drive strategic projects often requiring both deep business judgement and technical understanding, own and improve key operational systems, and help serve as a connective tissue and partnership manager between AI research, engineering, data, portfolio management team, wetlab experimentation, People, Finance, Legal, and external partners. 

This is a great fit for someone with a technical program management, technical product management, consulting, strategy and operations or similar background who can just as easily get down to the weeds and roll their sleeves up to dive into problems, as well as can operate at the 10,000 foot level and think at a systems-level view and bridge between AI, engineering and the business. 

Responsibilities

• Strategic Initiatives & SVP / Leadership Support: Lead and/or support special projects that can cover a wide breadth of topics including data strategy, talent strategy, IP strategy and contribute to SVP/Leadership Team operations, potentially including facilitating Leadership Team meetings. 
• Strategic Planning: Help design and execute on IoC strategic planning and rhythm of business as part of the Office of the SVP and Institute Director of the IoC.
• Partnership Strategy & Alliance Management: Support partnership strategy development and act as a de‑facto alliance manager for key external platform and data generation partners in the AI and biotech landscape, ensuring clear goals, aligned timelines, regular check‑ins, and smooth coordination with internal teams.
• Budget & Resource Management: Own day‑to‑day budget operations for the org in partnership with Finance and the Chief of Staff, including tracking spend, forecasting, approvals, and AWS billing and cost reporting/optimization.
• Engineering Operations: Act as the technical program manager point person between our data science / modeling, wetlab experimentation, and our computing and data infrastructure engineering teams. This may include managing modeling team user experience, access, usage forecasting, managing requests, dependencies and prioritization for data generation or curation needs from the central Data Infrastructure teams, and migration/cutover planning and communications.
• Business Operations & Process Improvement: Analyze and improve core operational processes (e.g., AWS billing, central resourcing, intake/prioritization) using a structured, data‑driven approach and latest AI technologies to design lightweight, scalable workflows. 

Who You Are

• Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional teams and driving strategic and cross‑functional projects end‑to‑end: developing strategies, aligning stakeholders, and rolling out initiatives. 
• Strategic and analytical thinker with strong problem-solving abilities and ability to navigate white-space problems, complex organizations, and ambiguous settings to drive buy-in. 
• Results-driven and detail-oriented with a proactive approach.
• Combination of grit and intellectual curiosity that enables you to dig into messy, complex problems and recommend solutions that bring simplicity 
• Understands how to think backwards from first principles, but also has operated in environments where they can bring best practices 
• Growth-oriented and eager to learn in a fast-paced environment.
• Operational excellence at the 1-foot and 50K foot levels

Minimum Qualifications

• 4-7 years of experience (for Manager) and 7+ years of experience (for Senior Manager) in any of the following: technical program management, technical product management, technical / product operations, strategy & operations, management consulting, or similar role
• Familiarity operating in a product or software engineering organization 
• Demonstrated ability to work credibly with engineers, data scientists, and/or ML researchers 
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills: can tailor level of detail from SVP to IC.
• Comfortable giving structure to ambiguous problems and pushing for clarity
• Strong operational and analytical skills, cross-functional stakeholder engagement and relationship building 

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity operating within an AI / ML or data science organization and/or highly technical R&D environment (e.g., biotech with strong computational components).
• No prior direct modeling experience needed, but needs to understand the concepts well enough to translate between technical and non‑technical stakeholders and shape initiatives involving complex AI or technical concepts. 
• Direct experience of close partnership or managing teams of AI / ML scientists and engineers or software engineers and experience with Agile 
• Experience working in fast-paced startup, MBA or technology companies

The salary range for the Redwood City, CA site:

• Strategy & Operations Manager: $74 - $90 / hr.
• Senior Strategy & Operations Manager: $91 - $111 / hr.

The salary range for the San Diego, CA site:

• Strategy & Operations Manager: $66 - $80 / hr.
• Strategy & Operations Manager: $83 - $101 / hr.

Exact compensation may vary based on skills, experience, and location.

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