Robots and Pencils
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Robots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. We design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations and deliver measurable results for our clients. Founded in 2009, we are smaller, faster, and more senior by design, with teams averaging 15+ years of experience.
8 Jobs
Product Manager
Robots and PencilsRobots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. We design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations and deliver measurable results for our clients. Founded in 2009, we are smaller, faster, and more senior by design, with teams averaging 15+ years of experience.
Role Description We're looking for a Product Manager to own product delivery across complex digital engagements. This position is for a project building an AI-powered workforce coordination platform that automates real-time crew assembly through intelligent voice interactions and backend decisioning systems. In this role, you will work as a core member of a cross-functional delivery team, owning backlog management, requirements definition, and sprint execution end-to-end. You'll be joining real, in-flight work where quality and delivery speed matter, collaborating with experienced engineers and designers and growing the product instincts that come from shipping things that matter. What You’ll Do - Craft & Delivery - Own and manage the product backlog, ensuring work is clearly defined, prioritized, and aligned to business outcomes. - Translate business needs and stakeholder requests into structured requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria. - Partner with engineering and design to ensure requirements are well understood and delivered with quality. - Facilitate sprint planning, backlog refinement, and day-to-day delivery execution to keep the team on track. - Identify and manage dependencies, risks, and scope changes throughout the delivery lifecycle. - Leverage data, user feedback, and team insights to continuously improve the product. - Bring an AI-forward mindset to your daily work, using tools like Claude to accelerate documentation, research, and analysis. - Collaboration & Communication - Build and maintain strong relationships with client stakeholders, serving as a trusted partner in delivery. - Communicate progress, risks, and tradeoffs clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences. - Facilitate working sessions, requirement discussions, and decision-making forums with clients and delivery teams. - Leadership & Influence - Take full ownership of product delivery responsibilities end-to-end and follow through with consistency. - Frame requests in terms of user and business outcomes, not just features. - Contribute to a positive, high-performing team environment through reliability, clarity, and good judgment. Qualifications - 3+ years of experience in product management or product ownership. - Strong understanding of agile delivery practices and product ownership responsibilities. - Experience writing requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria for cross-functional delivery teams. - Experience working directly with clients or external stakeholders. - Strong communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences. - Analytical approach to decision-making using data and user insight. - Proficiency with product and delivery tools (e.g., Jira, Confluence, Miro). - Demonstrable usage of AI tools to enhance productivity and product work (e.g., Claude). - Experience in a consulting or agency environment is a plus. Helpful Extras and Unique Skills - Exposure to AWS services (Bonus: AWS Bedrock, ECS, DynamoDB). - Experience with Twilio or similar communication platforms. - Awareness of AI/LLM-based products or voice interfaces. What You’ll Do Well Here If You Are - A doer who sees something broken and fixes it. - A fast learner who embraces the ever-changing AI landscape. - Direct in a way that improves the work environment. - Obsessed with craft and detail. - Built for ownership, honoring commitments and backing teammates. - All in, treating clients' businesses as your own. - Resourceful when faced with constraints. - Glad to be in the room with people who care as much as you do.
Technical Product Manager
Robots and PencilsRobots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. We design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations and deliver measurable results for our clients. Founded in 2009, we are smaller, faster, and more senior by design, with teams averaging 15+ years of experience.
Role Description At Robots & Pencils, we build meaningful, scalable digital products that solve real business problems. We are looking for a Staff Product Manager who combines deep Generative and Agentic AI fluency with hands-on building ability to own AI product outcomes end-to-end. As a Staff PM, you're accountable for initiative-level outcomes, stakeholder satisfaction, and contributing to R&P's AI product practice. You think in systems, work backwards from the customer problem, and stay relentlessly curious about what's next in AI. Enterprise clients want to deploy Agents - moving from a promising demo to a production system that works at scale, meets security and compliance requirements, and delivers measurable business value is hard. This role owns that problem. You'll be part of a GenAI initiative within the AWS ecosystem, building the evals, tools, patterns, and reference architectures that make AI deployment repeatable. The mindset: prove it works, test assumptions early, and document while building. Key Responsibilities - Product Strategy & AI Vision: - Define and drive the product vision, strategy, and roadmap for GenAI solutions with agentic AI as the primary focus. - Translate enterprise problems into structured product requirements; reframe feature requests into outcome-driven priorities. - Balance near-term deployment milestones with long-term platform scalability and sustainability. - Monitor the competitive GenAI landscape and emerging agentic patterns. - Discovery & Validation: - Research how enterprise users interact with AI agents and where they lose trust. - Design and run experiments to validate agentic solutions. - Distill research, experiments, and competitive intelligence into clear insights. - Agent Design, Prototyping & Production: - Define agent behavior and prototype system prompts and tool schemas. - Drive multi-model architecture tradeoffs with engineering. - Build AI prototypes to validate hypotheses. - Establish agent evaluation frameworks and partner with engineering on production readiness. - Define success metrics at the agent level. - Delivery & Execution: - Own the end-to-end product lifecycle from discovery through phased rollouts. - Manage the product backlog, scope, dependencies, and risks. - Evaluate technology and platform decisions from a product perspective. - Use AI to accelerate product work. - Stakeholder Management: - Build trusted relationships with stakeholders and executives. - Partner with AWS Solution Architects and account teams. - Manage expectations on scope, timelines, and tradeoffs. - Frame AI capabilities and limitations for non-technical stakeholders. Qualifications - 8-12+ years in product management, forward deployment, or solutions engineering. - Strong product sense and ability to identify what matters to users and the business. - Deep GenAI fluency with hands-on experience building or shipping agentic systems. - Proven ability to prototype AI solutions using AI tools. - Experience deploying AI solutions in enterprise environments with strong technical fluency. - Exceptional communicator with experience leading AI products through full lifecycle. - Comfortable operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments. - PM-level fluency across the AWS AI ecosystem. Preferred Qualifications - Software engineering or coding background (Python, JavaScript, TypeScript). - Agency or consulting delivery experience. - Experience in Financial Services, Healthcare, or Life Sciences industries. - Familiarity with open-source LLM ecosystem for flexibility and cost optimization. - Prior experience leading time-boxed discovery initiatives or technical spikes. Benefits - Work at the intersection of cutting-edge AI and real enterprise impact. - Variety of consulting with the depth of a product role. - Collaborative, technically sharp team invested in doing great work for clients.
Staff AI Engineer
Robots and PencilsRobots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. We design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations and deliver measurable results for our clients. Founded in 2009, we are smaller, faster, and more senior by design, with teams averaging 15+ years of experience.
Role Description At Robots & Pencils, we build meaningful, scalable digital products that solve real business problems. We’re looking for a Staff AI Engineer to support the development and delivery of complex, integration-heavy platforms. This role is ideal for an experienced engineer who thrives in hands-on development, can confidently own features and deployments, and contributes to team leadership within a pod. In this role, you will work as a key contributor on a cross-functional team, building across the stack while helping guide delivery, improve systems, and solve challenging integration problems, including AI-native platforms such as agentic learning systems designed to enable human-centered learning in the Age of AI. This is not a greenfield project. You’ll be joining a mature, production environment with real users, where reliability, performance, and scalability are critical. You’ll collaborate closely with senior engineers to enhance existing systems and deliver high-quality features. By joining us, you leverage our Advanced AWS Partnership and the highly exclusive AWS Patterns Partnership, a distinction held by only 11 companies worldwide out of 190,000. What You’ll Do - Development - Build and maintain backend services using Python and Node.js, including serverless architectures (e.g., AWS Lambda, API Gateway) - Develop and integrate APIs that support frontend applications and external systems - Contribute to frontend features and ensure smooth integration across the stack - Write clean, maintainable, and well-tested code with strong unit testing practices - Workflow & System Orchestration - Support the development and maintenance of workflows using orchestration tools (e.g., Sequencer / workflow engines, state machines) - Contribute to event-driven processes and asynchronous system operations (e.g., SQS, EventBridge) - Assist in improving reliability through better error handling and retries - Backend & API Engineering - Develop RESTful APIs and support the BE architecture - Integrate with third-party services and internal systems, including AI-driven platforms - Assist in optimizing performance and scalability of services using DynamoDB single-table design patterns (composite keys, transactional writes) - Implement secure and reliable data handling practices - System Reliability & Support - Troubleshoot issues in production environments with guidance from senior team members - Contribute to logging, monitoring, and debugging efforts - Support deployment and release processes in cloud-native environments (AWS, Docker) - Collaboration & Growth - Work closely with cross-functional teams across global locations - Participate in code reviews and team discussions - Take ownership of assigned features and tasks, delivering end-to-end solutions - Continue developing technical skills and leveraging AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Claude Code) Qualifications - 6+ years of professional software engineering - Strong experience with Python and Node.js - Experience with LLM function/tool calling, prompt engineering, multi-agent orchestration, vector databases (OpenSearch), embeddings, streaming LLM responses, RAG concepts - Experience working with AWS cloud environments, including Lambda, DynamoDB (and Single-Table design), S3, SQS, EventBridge, Step Functions, etc. - Experience building and maintaining fullstack applications - Exposure to workflow orchestration tools (e.g., Sequencer or similar systems) - Solid understanding of API design and backend systems - Familiarity with databases (SQL and/or NoSQL, including scalable design patterns) - Experience working in production environments - Strong unit testing practices and maintainable test strategies - Experience with containerization (e.g., Docker) Nice to Have - Demonstrated ability to reason about system-wide impacts of changes, including downstream effects across services and data layers - Demonstrated ability to identify design gaps in requirements and raise them before they reach development - Experience with Langfuse, synthetic AI testing, token cost optimization, reasoning effort configuration, Step Functions for AI workflows
Senior AI Engineer
Robots and PencilsRobots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. We design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations and deliver measurable results for our clients. Founded in 2009, we are smaller, faster, and more senior by design, with teams averaging 15+ years of experience.
Role Description We’re looking for a Senior AI Engineer to design, build, and deliver production AI/ML systems. This role is ideal for an engineer with several years of experience who can confidently own features end-to-end, contribute to architectural decisions, and bring strong technical judgment to the problems they take on. - Design, implement, and deploy ML/AI models end-to-end, from concept through production, including data pipelines, training workflows, and optimization for performance, accuracy, and efficiency. - Maintain and evolve AI systems in production, monitoring for drift, debugging issues, and driving ongoing improvements to reliability and scalability. - Bring an AI-forward coding mindset to your daily work, using tools like Claude and Cursor to ship higher-quality work at pace. - Partner closely with product, engineering, and data teams to align AI work with broader product and business goals. - Translate technical tradeoffs, model behavior, and constraints into terms non-specialists can act on. - Participate actively in code reviews and design discussions, raising concerns and offering constructive feedback. - Contribute to AI architecture decisions with thoughtful perspective on tradeoffs and long-term implications. - Take ownership of meaningful work end-to-end, including the unglamorous parts of getting AI into production. - Raise the bar on engineering practices through your own work and by supporting more junior engineers when opportunities arise. Qualifications - 4+ years professional software engineering experience, with 2+ years focused on AI/ML systems in production and hands-on experience with generative AI development. - Strong software engineering background (Python or similar). - Working knowledge of cloud platforms, preferably with in-depth understanding of AWS services and AWS GenAI offerings. - Proven ability to design and ship agentic systems. - Experience with AI frameworks and orchestration tools. - Experience with evaluation frameworks, and observability tools for LLM apps. - Understanding of AI safety, responsible AI principles, prompt injection defenses, and PII handling. - Hands-on experience building RAG pipelines: chunking strategies, embedding models, vector databases. - API development experience, including designing and integrating with internal and third-party services. - Cost optimization expertise: token economics, caching strategies, model routing, quantization. - Working knowledge of Docker and Kubernetes for containerized deployments. - Demonstrable, day-to-day usage and knowledge of AI-forward coding tools such as Claude Code and Cursor. - Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to navigate ambiguous technical challenges with sound judgment. Requirements - A doer who sees something broken and fixes it. - A fast learner who is curious and keeps learning. - Direct in a way that improves work quality. - Obsessed with craft and detail. - Built for ownership and accountability. - All in for client success and resourceful under constraints. - Glad to collaborate with experienced team members. Benefits - Comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off. - Medical/dental/vision insurance. - 401(k) to eligible employees. Company Description Robots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. We design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations and deliver measurable results for our clients. Founded in 2009, we are smaller, faster, and more senior by design, with teams averaging 15+ years of experience.
DevOps Engineer
Robots and PencilsRobots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. We design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations and deliver measurable results for our clients. Founded in 2009, we are smaller, faster, and more senior by design, with teams averaging 15+ years of experience.
Role Description We're looking for a DevOps/Backend Engineer (Level 4) to own infrastructure, CI/CD, and backend services for a large-scale platform serving a major public university. You will be responsible for maintaining and evolving a multi-repo AWS serverless architecture spanning: - Lambda functions - Step Functions - DynamoDB - API Gateway - SQS - CloudFront - Containerized services running on ECR This is not a greenfield project. You'll be joining a mature, production system with real users depending on it daily. The platform orchestrates complex business workflows through event-driven serverless pipelines, integrating with multiple external enterprise APIs and internal microservices. You'll work closely with backend and frontend engineers to keep this system reliable, observable, and shipping safely across multiple environments. By joining us, you leverage our Advanced AWS Partnership and the highly exclusive AWS Patterns Partnership, a distinction held by only 11 companies worldwide out of 190,000. Qualifications - 7+ years of professional software engineering experience - Deep hands-on experience with AWS serverless services: Lambda, API Gateway, Step Functions, DynamoDB, SQS, CloudFront, ECR - Strong proficiency writing and maintaining Terraform at scale - Production experience with CI/CD pipeline design and operation (Jenkins preferred) - Solid understanding of containerization (Docker) and image registry management (ECR) - Experience with multi-environment promotion strategies and deployment safety patterns Requirements - Backend Development & Operations - Develop and maintain Node.js and Python Lambda functions powering REST APIs, data aggregation, and business logic - Build and optimize Step Function workflows orchestrating multi-service operations - Integrate with external enterprise APIs and internal microservices, handling authentication, rate limiting, and error propagation - Implement deferred processing patterns using SQS for handling concurrent and long-running operations - Infrastructure & IaC - Own and evolve Terraform modules provisioning API Gateway, Lambda, DynamoDB, Step Functions, SQS, CloudFront, and ECR across multiple AWS accounts - Manage multi-account AWS environments with proper IAM boundaries, secrets management (Vault), and S3 state backends - Design and implement infrastructure changes that support zero-downtime deployments and safe rollback strategies - Maintain and optimize Docker image builds and ECR lifecycle policies for containerized services - CI/CD & Release Engineering - Own Jenkins pipelines that build, test, and promote artifacts through staged environments with manual approval gates - Improve build reliability, speed, and developer feedback loops across multiple repositories - Implement and maintain pre-commit hooks, automated testing gates, and lint/type-check enforcement - Coordinate production deployments following established release procedures - Observability & Reliability - Build monitoring, alerting, and logging infrastructure for a distributed serverless system - Troubleshoot production issues spanning API Gateway, Lambda cold starts, Step Function timeouts, and DynamoDB throttling - Establish and maintain SLOs for critical user-facing workflows - Improve error handling and retry strategies across event-driven workflows Benefits - Work on a production platform that directly impacts real users at scale - Operate within a mature, multi-repo AWS serverless architecture with real complexity - Collaborate with experienced engineers across backend, frontend, and infrastructure disciplines - Grow within a globally recognized AWS partner ecosystem with access to cutting-edge cloud practices - Influence DevOps culture, tooling, and reliability standards across the engineering organization
UX/UI Designer
Robots and PencilsRobots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. We design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations and deliver measurable results for our clients. Founded in 2009, we are smaller, faster, and more senior by design, with teams averaging 15+ years of experience.
Robots & Pencils is looking for a UX/UI Designer to help design thoughtful, high-quality digital experiences across a range of client engagements. This role is ideal for a curious, collaborative designer who enjoys solving real problems and bringing ideas to life, from early concepts through polished delivery. You will partner closely with client product teams and our internal Experience team to turn complex ideas into clear, intuitive, and engaging experiences. This is a hands-on design role, with most of your time spent designing, prototyping, and collaborating, while also contributing to internal initiatives such as marketing, business development, and the evolution of our design practice. This role is well suited to someone who thrives on variety, works comfortably across industries, and is excited to experiment with AI-powered workflows to enhance their craft. Why This Role Matters At Robots & Pencils, we build smart systems for a human world. Designers play a critical role in shaping how people experience technology, ensuring it feels intuitive, purposeful, and human. In this role, you will help clients transform complex challenges into meaningful digital experiences while also contributing to how we design, collaborate, and explore emerging technologies such as AI. Your work will directly influence the quality of what we ship and how teams work together. Key Responsibilities UX/UI Design & Execution · Design end-to-end UX and UI deliverables, from early exploration and concepting through high-fidelity execution. · Create wireframes, prototypes, and polished interface designs that balance usability, business goals, and technical constraints. · Build, evolve, and maintain design systems that support consistency, scalability, and flexibility across products. · Use Figma confidently for design, prototyping, documentation, and collaboration. Collaboration & Delivery · Partner closely with client product teams to understand problems, shape solutions, and deliver meaningful outcomes. · Collaborate with other designers on the Experience team to share feedback, ideas, and best practices. · Work alongside engineers, strategists, and delivery leads to bring designs to life effectively and efficiently. · Participate in agile workflows and balance multiple projects, clients, and industries while maintaining a high bar for craft. Innovation & Practice Growth · Experiment with AI-powered tools and workflows to improve efficiency, creativity, and design quality. · Contribute to internal initiatives such as marketing efforts, pitches, and business development. · Support the evolution of Robots & Pencils’ design practice through curiosity, experimentation, and continuous improvement. Required Skills & Experience · Two to five years of professional experience as a UX/UI Designer working on digital products or platforms. · Strong hands-on design skills with deep proficiency in Figma. · Experience working directly with clients or cross-functional product teams. · Experience building and maintaining design systems in real-world product environments. · A collaborative mindset with comfort giving and receiving design feedback. · Curiosity and enthusiasm for experimenting with AI tools and emerging technologies in design workflows. · Ability to adapt to design approaches across different industries, users, and problem spaces. · A desire to keep learning, improving, and trying new ways of working. Nice to Have · Comfort participating in workshops, critiques, or collaborative design sessions. · Exposure to motion design, advanced prototyping tools, or front-end concepts. · Experience exploring AI-assisted design, automation, or generative tools. · Familiarity working across a range of client verticals. How We Work You will collaborate most closely with client-side product teams and our internal Experience team of UX and UI designers. You will also partner with engineers, strategists, and delivery leads as needed to bring ideas to life. We value versatility, curiosity, and teamwork, and we support designers in growing their skills while doing meaningful, impactful work. Join Us Robots & Pencils is a fun, ambitious place to do the best work of your career. We move quickly, experiment often, and care deeply about craft, collaboration, and people. If you’re excited to design great experiences, explore how AI can enhance your process, and work with a team that genuinely enjoys building together, we’d love to meet you.
Product Manager (L4)
Robots and PencilsRobots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. We design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations and deliver measurable results for our clients. Founded in 2009, we are smaller, faster, and more senior by design, with teams averaging 15+ years of experience.
At Robots & Pencils, we build meaningful, scalable digital products that solve real business problems. We are seeking an experienced Product Owner (L4) to lead product execution within cross-functional delivery teams and ensure successful outcomes for client initiatives. In this role, you will act as the bridge between client stakeholders, product strategy, and engineering delivery. You will guide product definition, manage delivery backlogs, and ensure teams are focused on the highest-value work. The ideal candidate is comfortable working in agile delivery environments, facilitating client conversations, and translating complex business needs into clear product requirements. Key Responsibilities Product Definition & Requirements - Lead requirements gathering sessions with client stakeholders to understand business goals, operational workflows, and product needs. - Facilitate prioritization and tradeoff decisions across usability, feasibility, and business value, helping stakeholders with competing interests reach alignment. - Translate requirements into product roadmaps, feature documentation, and product requirements documents (PRDs). - Define functional requirements, acceptance criteria, and success metrics for product features. - Break down product initiatives into Epics, Features, and User Stories suitable for agile development teams. - Ensure requirements are clear, actionable, and aligned with the overall product vision and delivery goals. Backlog Ownership & Delivery Management - Own and manage the product backlog, ensuring work is clearly defined, prioritized, and aligned with business objectives. - Maintain backlog health through continuous refinement and prioritization. - Work with engineering and design teams to ensure stories are well-defined, technically feasible, and ready for development. - Maintain visibility into scope, dependencies, delivery risks, and trade-offs. - Balance near-term sprint delivery with long-term product scalability and maintainability. Agile Team Leadership - Facilitate core agile ceremonies, including: - Sprint planning - Daily standups - Backlog grooming sessions - Sprint reviews and demos - Retrospectives - Ensure teams maintain clear sprint goals and consistent delivery cadence. - Monitor delivery progress and adjust priorities as needed to meet business and client objectives. Stakeholder Collaboration & Communication - Serve as a primary product contact for both client stakeholders and internal teams. - Proactively manage expectations, surface risks and tradeoff implications early, before they become delivery problems. - Communicate priorities, delivery progress, and product decisions clearly and proactively. - Translate technical concepts into business language and business requirements into actionable development work. - Work closely with engineers, designers, architects, and project managers to align on product priorities and delivery timelines. - Support roadmap planning, release coordination, and expectation management. Product Quality & Continuous Improvement - Validate delivered features against acceptance criteria and intended business outcomes. - Ensure delivered functionality meets quality, usability, and product expectations. - Identify risks, dependencies, and ambiguities early, driving timely resolution. - Continuously improve product documentation, backlog management practices, and team collaboration workflows. Required Skills & Experience - 7–10 years of experience in a Product Owner, Product Manager, or similar product delivery role within a software development environment. - Demonstrated track record leading complex product delivery through the full agile lifecycle. - Strong experience running product discovery, facilitating stakeholder workshops and requirements gathering sessions. - Strong product ownership experience: backlog management, feature prioritization, story writing, sprint ceremonies, and requirement documentation. - Proven experience delivering end-to-end web applications, comfortable enough with backend services and REST APIs to participate in architecture discussions and write meaningful stories. - Proficiency with AI productivity tools (Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot) for research, writing, information synthesis, and workflow automation. - Experience supporting complex digital product delivery involving cross-functional engineering teams. - Strong understanding of Agile/Scrum delivery practices and product ownership responsibilities. - Proven experience translating business requirements into structured product documentation and user stories. - Experience facilitating stakeholder workshops and requirements gathering sessions. - Familiarity with product delivery and collaboration tools such as: - Jira - Confluence - Azure DevOps - GitHub - Strong communication skills and the ability to bridge business and technical conversations. Soft Skills & Personal Attributes - Strong facilitation and stakeholder management skills. - Highly organized with strong attention to detail and follow-through. - Comfortable working in fast-paced consulting environments with evolving requirements. - Collaborative mindset and ability to work effectively within cross-functional delivery teams. - Strategic thinking combined with a pragmatic, delivery-focused approach. - Ability to navigate ambiguity and guide teams toward clear outcomes. - High level of accountability, ownership, and follow-through. - Adaptable, proactive, and comfortable working with both business and technical stakeholders. Why Join Robots & Pencils? At Robots & Pencils, Product Owners play a central role in turning ideas into impactful digital products. You will collaborate with talented engineers, designers, and architects while partnering closely with clients to build modern digital solutions that deliver real business value.
Senior Delivery Manager
Robots and PencilsRobots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. We design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations and deliver measurable results for our clients. Founded in 2009, we are smaller, faster, and more senior by design, with teams averaging 15+ years of experience.
This description is a summary of our understanding of the job description. Click on 'Apply' button to find out more. Role Description At Robots & Pencils, we drive digital innovation by building meaningful, scalable software products for forward-thinking clients. We are seeking an experienced and strategic Senior Delivery Manager to lead distributed teams across North America and Eastern Europe. This role requires a strong command of agile delivery practices, cross-cultural collaboration, and technical program leadership. You will be responsible for ensuring successful outcomes across complex engagements by aligning delivery execution with client expectations, business objectives, and quality standards. This position includes monthly travel to client sites in the U.S. to support relationship building, delivery alignment, and strategic planning. - Lead high-performing distributed delivery teams, fostering a culture of excellence, accountability, and collaboration. - Act as the operational bridge between onshore stakeholders and offshore development teams, ensuring clear communication and cohesive execution. - Provide mentorship and guidance to delivery leaders, project managers, and engineers. - Own the end-to-end delivery of multiple concurrent client engagements, ensuring scope, budget, timeline, and quality benchmarks are consistently met. - Define and track delivery of KPIs, using data to drive decision-making and continuous improvement. - Manage project execution with a proactive risk management approach, resolving issues before impacting outcomes. - Lead discovery and process-mapping initiatives that document current operational workflows and end-to-end journeys, particularly in education environments. - Serve as the primary client contact for delivery-related matters, building trusted, long-term relationships through transparent communication and consistent results. - Conduct regular client check-ins and executive briefings to report on progress, blockers, and strategic opportunities. - Travel to client sites (minimum once per month) to align goals, gather feedback, and support project success. - Facilitate workshops and working sessions with stakeholders to gather insights, document operational processes, and align on delivery outcomes. - Partner with technical leads and architects to ensure alignment between delivery execution and technical vision. - Advocate for modern engineering practices, tooling, and automation strategies that improve delivery velocity and quality. - Support architecture and design discussions as needed to unblock teams and ensure sound decision-making. - Where applicable, leverage internal AI tools or models to support documentation, workflow analysis, and delivery efficiency. - Continuously improve agile processes and delivery frameworks to support distributed team dynamics. - Identify delivery bottlenecks and implement scalable solutions that enhance communication, accountability, and throughput. - Champion a culture of continuous improvement, innovation, and learning across all delivery teams. Qualifications - 12+ years in software development or technical delivery, including 5+ years managing distributed teams across onshore/offshore locations (Eastern Europe experience preferred). - Proven success delivering complex projects in agile environments, meeting demanding timelines and quality expectations. - Deep understanding of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), agile practices (Scrum, SAFe, Kanban), and modern cloud architectures. - Strong familiarity with common tools: Jira, Confluence, Trello, Git, CI/CD pipelines. - Ability to leverage delivery metrics and performance data to inform strategies and optimize outcomes. - Strong technical acumen, with the ability to contribute to architectural discussions and understand engineering constraints. - Exceptional interpersonal and stakeholder management skills; confident managing executive-level relationships and escalations. - PMP, Scrum Master, or other relevant technical/project management certifications are highly desirable. - Experience managing delivery teams across multiple time zones and geographies. - Experience working with education or higher education environments, or leading complex discovery and operational documentation engagements, is a strong plus. Personal Attributes - Accountable & Outcome-Focused – Takes full ownership of delivery success, consistently meeting expectations with integrity. - Client-Centric – Builds deep partnerships through credibility, trust, and consistent delivery value. - Adaptable & Agile – Thrives in fast-paced environments and responds quickly to shifting client needs or project conditions. - Pragmatic Leader – Balances hands-on involvement with strategic oversight, empowering teams while remaining deeply engaged. - Collaborative & Culturally Fluent – Navigates cross-cultural communication and team dynamics with empathy and clarity. - Solution-Oriented – Anticipates and removes blockers, drives clarity in ambiguity, and simplifies complex delivery challenges. Benefits - We blend strategy, design, and engineering to craft technology that transforms business and enriches human experience. - As a Senior Delivery Manager, you’ll play a critical role in delivering impactful software products that redefine digital success. - You’ll collaborate with a global team of experts and clients who trust us to bring bold ideas to life, with speed, precision, and excellence.