Program Manager, Enterprise AI Literacy & Enablement - (E4)
About the Role
Applied Materials is the world's largest supplier of semiconductor manufacturing equipment — and how quickly our workforce harnesses AI directly shapes our ability to innovate, execute, and compete. This role sits on the team responsible for driving enterprise-wide AI adoption and culture-building: turning strategic intent into measurable workforce capability. You will design and run the programs that move Applied Materials employees from AI-curious to AI-proficient, and you will do so at the pace and scale a global technology manufacturer demands. This is not a training-catalog role. It is an enterprise change initiative, and you will own it.
Responsibilities
- Own the enterprise AI literacy roadmap. Define the multi-year curriculum strategy — segmented by role, function, and proficiency tier — and translate it into a concrete quarterly execution plan with named milestones and owners.
- Drive measurable capability gains. Instrument every program initiative against a KPI framework that tracks usage and adoption rate, proficiency level by employee tier, time-saved and productivity impact, and confidence/sentiment scores — then report findings to senior leadership on a regular cadence.
- Design and deliver leader-facing workshops. Build and facilitate hands-on sessions for people managers and executives on [Applied's AI tool stack, including Microsoft Copilot] — equipping leaders to model new working behaviors and set expectations for their teams.
- Build and activate an AI Champion Network. Recruit, onboard, and hold accountable a distributed community of AI ambassadors across business units; provide them with enablement resources, feedback loops, and executive air cover so they can accelerate adoption where you cannot be present.
- Lead change management, not just communications. Proactively map adoption barriers — cultural, technical, and structural — develop mitigation strategies, and work with managers to shift behaviors before resistance becomes inertia.
- Partner on responsible-AI governance. Collaborate with Legal, Security, Compliance, and Data Governance stakeholders to ensure every program initiative remains aligned with Applied's responsible-AI principles and regulatory requirements.
- Align and influence cross-functional stakeholders. Navigate a matrixed organization to secure buy-in, resources, and sponsorship from business unit leaders and senior executives — without direct authority over any of them.
- Tie learning outcomes to business performance. Frame every program deliverable in terms of productivity improvement, operational efficiency, or competitive advantage — not only employee satisfaction or participation counts.
- Iterate rapidly. Collect participant feedback, benchmark against industry peers, and refine program design continuously — treating each cohort as a data point, not a finish line.
Qualifications
- 5+ years of program or change management experience inside a large, complex enterprise; experience in a technology, semiconductor, or advanced manufacturing environment is a plus.
- Demonstrated experience designing and facilitating executive-level learning experiences — preferably including AI or digital transformation content.
- Hands-on familiarity with enterprise AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot, GitHub Copilot, or equivalent productivity AI platforms; experience training others to use them is strongly preferred.
- Exposure to responsible-AI or AI governance frameworks — including working with Legal, Compliance, or Data Governance teams to evaluate and mitigate AI-related risks.
- Experience building or scaling an ambassador, champion, or peer-network program across multiple business units.
Skills
- Running complex programs at enterprise scale.
- Influencing without authority.
- Reading the organization.
- Anticipating second-order effects.
- Translating strategy into structured execution.
- Facilitating executive workshops with confidence.
- Sustaining energy and credibility across a long initiative.
Pay
Salary: $116,000.00 - $159,500.00
Location: Austin, TX
Time Type: Full time
Employee Type: Assignee / Regular
Travel: Yes, 20% of the Time
Relocation Eligible: Yes