Odyssey
Research Partnership Manager
- Location
- Palo Alto, CA, US
- Employment type
- Full-time
- Level
- Manager
- Posted
- 6 July 2026 (about 2 months ago)
Checked 7 days agoApplications go to the employer, never to RoleSprint
About this role
WHO WE ARE
Odyssey https://odyssey.ml is an AI lab pioneering general world models: causal, multimodal systems that learn to predict and interact with the world over long horizons. This foundational technology promises to revolutionize robotics, science, healthcare, education, gaming, defense, and beyond.
Odyssey’s founders previously pioneered the most complex application of physical AI: self-driving cars. They’ve now brought together a world-class research team from DeepMind, Tesla, Waymo, Meta, Apple, and Wayve, who have made significant contributions to language models (DeepMind Gemini), video models (DeepMind Veo), world models (Wayve GAIA), and autonomous systems (Tesla FSD).
Odyssey has raised significant venture capital from GV, Amazon, AMD, EQT, NVIDIA, Natural Capital, In-Q-Tel, Elad Gil, Jeff Dean, Guillermo Rauch, Garry Tan, Kyle Vogt, and researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, MSL, Recursive, and Thinking Machines.
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
Odyssey is seeking a Research Partnership Manager to serve as the operational engine for our R&D and commercial partnerships. Working closely with Business Development and Product, you are the operational backbone, translating the requirements of our research teams and external partners into concrete delivery plans, ensuring that complex, high-stakes engagements remain on track and aligned with our strategic goals.
The right candidate will be able to manage a high-level of activity across a portfolio of high-priority strategic relationships, drive operational rigor, and serve as a connective layer across business, technical, legal, product, policy, and delivery stakeholders.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
- Own partnership delivery timelines, milestones, and cross-team accountabilities.
- Ensure that external deliverables are complementary to internal roadmaps.
- Serve as the primary operational point of contact for external partners.
- Shield Research and Business Development leads from administrative friction, enabling focus on high-level strategy.
- Liaising with Product and internal stakeholders, proactively identify and resolve bottlenecks between internal technical teams and external partners.
- Manage a portfolio of active partnerships, maintaining rigor from onboarding through execution.
- Serve as the institutional source of truth for each engagement, ensuring documentation, meeting hygiene, and alignment across diverse teams.
- You own upfront diligence to define and ensure security requirements are upheld over the course of engagements.
WHO YOU ARE
- You are an orchestrator who excels at organizing people and processes to drive results, rather than defining feature sets.
- You have strong interpersonal judgment and can mediate between technical teams and external business stakeholders.
- You are a systems-thinker who builds processes to prevent tasks from falling through the cracks.
- You can synthesize complex research blockers into actionable status updates for Commercialization leadership.
- You bring a background in technical program management, research operations, or technical account management within long-cycle R&D environments.
Our staff is expected to be in office at least three times a week. A lot of our progress comes from working through problems together, and we want you in the room for that.
Work location
- Palo Alto, CA, US
Related jobs
Ready to make a decision?
This role is either worth your time or it isn’t.
Analyze the posting against your experience, see the gaps clearly, and build the right materials only if the opportunity makes sense.
Nothing is submitted automatically. You choose what happens next.
About this listing
Published on Ashby under the board identifier Odysseyml, which is the name the employer’s own job board carries. RoleSprint has not verified the company’s registered or trading name, so it is shown exactly as published rather than tidied up.
RoleSprint is not the employer and not a recruiter. Applications are made on the employer’s own site and never reach us; what RoleSprint does is help you decide whether a role is worth your time and prepare for it if it is.
Published 6 July 2026, last checked 7 days ago. A posting stops being advertised here 90 days after the employer published it, and one the employer takes down is marked closed rather than quietly removed.