Senior Manager, R&D

What You’ll Be Working On

Team Building & People Leadership

• Recruit, hire, and onboard R&D team members across technology evaluation, program management, and related functions.
• Own the people management lifecycle: conduct regular 1:1s, drive career development conversations, manage performance, and build an inclusive, high-performing team culture.

Organizational Scaling

• Partner with R&D leadership to translate the organizational growth plan into a phased hiring roadmap.
• Define role profiles, interview processes, and onboarding programs that attract and retain top talent in a competitive market.

Program Management (Hybrid)

• Directly manage R&D programs—including technology evaluations, external partner engagements, feasibility pilots, and cross-functional projects that advance technologies from concept through pilot validation toward hyperscale deployment.
• As the team grows, transition program execution to dedicated TPMs while retaining oversight and mentorship.

Operational Excellence

• Establish and continuously improve R&D operational processes: intake workflows, project tracking, resource allocation, reporting cadences, and governance structures.
• Ensure the team operates with transparency, discipline, and speed.

Engineering Team Coordination

• Support the interface between R&D and engineering teams across the company.
• Help facilitate planning sessions, regular touchpoints, and ad hoc engagements that ensure R&D is delivering value to the people building and deploying Crusoe’s infrastructure.

Leadership Partnership

• Serve as the primary operational partner to the head of R&D, enabling strategic focus by owning day-to-day team management and program execution.
• Provide input on organizational design, resource prioritization, and process improvements.

External Partnerships & Stakeholder Engagement

• Support relationship management with technology vendors, emerging startups, and research partners.
• Help coordinate pilot programs and external engagements that bring new technologies into Crusoe’s evaluation pipeline.

What You’ll Bring to the Team

• People Management: 5+ years of direct people management experience, including hiring, performance management, and career development of technical individual contributors. Experience building or significantly scaling a team is strongly preferred.
• Program Management: 5+ years of technical program or project management experience in infrastructure, manufacturing, data center, or related engineering environments.
• Technical Fluency: Sufficient technical background to engage credibly with engineers across data center infrastructure, power systems, cooling, and compute domains.
• Organizational Building: Demonstrated experience standing up new teams, functions, or organizational capabilities from early stage. Comfortable operating in ambiguity and building process while delivering results.
• Communication & Executive Presence: Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Ability to represent the R&D organization to engineering leaders, executive stakeholders, and external partners.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business, or a related discipline. Advanced degree is a plus but not required.

Bonus Points:

• Experience in a data center, infrastructure, or energy company.
• Background in R&D organizations, advanced engineering groups, innovation teams, or technical consulting practices.
• Track record of managing hybrid teams that combine program management and technical evaluation functions.
• Experience partnering with recruiting to build technical hiring pipelines in competitive talent markets.
• Familiarity with AI infrastructure, high-performance computing, or hyperscale data center environments.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and equity packages
• Restricted Stock Units
• Paid time off, paid holidays & leave of absence programs
• Comprehensive health, dental & vision insurance
• Employer contributions to HSA account
• Paid parental leave
• Paid life insurance, short-term and long-term disability
• Professional development & tuition reimbursement
• Mental health & wellness support
• Commuter benefits (parking & transit)
• Cell phone stipend
• 401(k) Retirement plan with company match up to 4% of salary
• Volunteer time off
• Global travel insurance & emergency assistance
• Daily meals allowance
• Additional perks & programs specific to location

Compensation Range

Compensation will be paid in the range of up to $132,000 -$165,000 + Bonus. Restricted Stock Units are included in all offers. Compensation to be determined by the applicants knowledge, education, and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data.