Senior Manager, R&D

Job description

Crusoe is on a mission to accelerate the abundance of energy and intelligence. As the only vertically integrated AI infrastructure company built from the ground up, we own and operate each layer of the stack — from electrons to tokens — to power the world's most ambitious AI workloads. When you join Crusoe, you join a team that is building the future, faster. We're in the midst of the greatest industrial revolution of our time. The demand for AI compute is boundless, and power is a bottleneck. We're solving that — with an energy-first approach that makes AI infrastructure better for the world and faster for the people innovating with AI. We're looking for problem-solving, opportunity-finding teammates with a sense of urgency, who believe in the scale of our ambition and thrive on a path not fully paved — people who want to grow their careers alongside a team of experts across energy, manufacturing, data center construction, and cloud services. If you want to do the most meaningful work of your career, help our customers and partners advance their AI strategies, and be part of a high-performing team that believes in each other, come build with us at Crusoe. ABOUT THIS ROLE: Crusoe is a vertically integrated AI infrastructure company with a mission to accelerate the abundance of energy and intelligence. Our competitive advantage—“Speed is the only moat”—is directly tied to our ability to rapidly design, manufacture, and deploy our own modular power and compute infrastructure. We are seeking a Senior Manager, R&D to serve as the operational and people leadership backbone of Crusoe’s growing R&D organization. R&D’s mission is to evaluate emerging technologies—working with startups, industry providers, and research institutions—define future data center architectures, and deliver validated solutions from pilot scale through hyperscale deployment. This role is central to scaling the team that makes that mission possible. Crusoe’s R&D organization is in a high-growth phase. As Senior Manager, you will be the people leader for the majority of the team—owning hiring, career development, and team performance—while also contributing directly as a program manager during the early scaling phase. This is a hybrid player-coach role for someone who thrives on building teams and delivering results simultaneously. You will help shape an R&D organization that scans the horizon for what’s next, builds partnerships with the companies and researchers developing breakthrough technologies, rigorously tests what’s promising, and drives adoption from pilot through production. 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): During the team’s early growth phase, 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. You don’t need to be the technical expert—but you need to understand the landscape well enough to manage and mentor technical ICs effectively. - 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 $140,000 -$170,000 + 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. Crusoe is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, citizenship, marital status, sex/gender, sexual preference/ orientation, gender identity, age, veteran status, national origin, or any other status protected by law or regulation.