Senior Program Manager, R&D Talent Programs

Location: Boston MA - Hybrid position

Toast creates technology to help restaurants and local businesses succeed in a digital world helping business owners operate increase sales engage customers and keep employees happy.

As Senior Program Manager R&D Talent Programs you will own the Product/Design talent program end to endstrategy structure cohort experience and stakeholder alignmentserving as the primary point of contact and the planner who builds the cohorts that become the next generation of Toasts Product and Design this role you will collaborate closely with the Early Careers team who manages university partnerships and the talent pipeline as well as the Recruitment team who oversees candidate sourcing and requisition management.

Our Product internship program is where youll start. As that program matures you will design and build the talent programs that come nextextending to Design and the wider set of programs that develop talent across R&D. This is a role with room to define its own scope over time.

This role is ideal for someone who has built a talent program. You will set strategy alongside Product & Design leadership then do the work that makes strategy real: securing headcount establishing timelines designing an evaluation bar and creating an intern experience good enough that the best candidates say yes. You will work in close partnership with People Success Partners Early Careers Recruitment Finance Compensation and Product/Design leadership.

This role sits within the R&D Operations team at Toast - we are on a mission to empower our teams to build great products efficiently effectively and at scale. We remove obstacles foster alignment and help teams focus on what matters mostsolving real problems for our customers. We also play a central role in building the talent pipeline for the future.

A day in the life (Responsibilities)

• Own the Product and Design program side of our internship and early-career programs program design structure timeline deliverables communications and intern experience once candidates are in the pipeline (sourcing screening and requisition-to-offer recruiting mechanics sit with Early Careers and Recruitment). Build a structure for managers to determine internship projects and team placements.
• Size and secure intern headcount each cycle and partner with Early Careers/Recruitment to ensure hiring plans timelines and evaluation criteria set them up for success.
• Build world-class programming - including onboarding an executive speaker series intern showcase and capstone presentations and cohort culture and community.
• Design the conversion process including the evaluation frameworks compensation packages and sell experience.
• Keep stakeholders aligned and informed from intern managers to leaders on program direction level budget and placement.
• Represent Product at university partner engagements and campus events set up by Early Careers. Partner with Recruitment to source market intelligence to keep our process and our offers competitive.
• Run end-of-cycle retrospectives and translate them into the following years plan growing this from a single-cohort program into a durable multi-function leadership pipeline for Toast.
• Design and build new talent programs over timeidentifying where R&Ds biggest talent gaps are making the case for a program to address them and standing it up from a blank page.
• Embrace and advocate for the use of AI tools to accelerate product discovery streamline execution and explore new product experiences - helping shape how we build and what we build.

What youll need to thrive (Requirements)

• 7 years of relevant experience across talent programs early career or university recruiting program management or R&D/Product Operations.
• A track record of building and growing a talent programyou have stood something up and scaled it.
• University MBA or early-career recruiting experience strongly preferred including familiarity with campus recruiting calendars and competitive dynamics.
• Exceptional program management: you can hold many parallel workstreams stakeholders and hard external deadlines without dropping any of them.
• Proven ability to influence without authoritybriefing executives holding senior managers to commitments and absorbing pushback while keeping the program on track.
• Sound judgment on talent with the ability to build and steward an evaluation bar and calibrate fairly across dissimilar work.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication; you distill complexity into clarity for audiences from interns to the executive team.
• Genuine energy for early-career talent. For many candidates you are their first and most lasting impression of Toast.
• Based in Boston and able to be onsite regularly since the cohort experience and campus engagements happen in person.

AI at Toast

At Toast one of our company values is that were hungry to build and learn. We believe learning new AI tools empowers us to build for our customers faster more independently and with higher quality. We provide these tools across all disciplines from Engineering and Product to Sales and Support and are inspired by how our Toasters are already driving real value with them. The people who thrive here are those who embrace changes that let us build more for our customers; its a core part of our culture.

Our Total Rewards Philosophy

We strive to provide competitive compensation and benefits programs that help to attract retain and motivate the best and brightest people in our industry. Our total rewards package goes beyond great earnings potential and provides the means to a healthy lifestyle with the flexibility to meet Toasters changing needs. Learn more about our benefits at base salary range for this role is listed below. The starting salary will be determined based on skills experience and geographic addition to base salary our total rewards components include cash compensation (overtime bonus/commissions if eligible) equity and benefits. You can learn more about how we align pay with local labor markets in our Geographic Pay Zone Philosophy.