Senior Project Manager

Location: San Francisco Bay Area, CA

Full Time

Role Overview

As Sanmai’s Senior Project Manager, you will own the planning, execution, and delivery of Sanmai’s clinical trials, ensuring they are conducted with precision, integrity, and impact. You will manage trial-level operations, including budget, timelines, vendor partnerships, and cross-functional coordination. This role requires you to serve as both strategist and operator—translating protocols into actionable plans, resolving obstacles before they arise, and ensuring compliance with regulatory and ethical standards.

You are expected to lead with a high degree of autonomy, proactively shape project execution, and consistently deliver results that support Sanmai’s mission and long-term strategy.

What You Will Achieve

As the Project Manager, your leadership will ensure Sanmai’s clinical trials are executed with precision, integrity, and impact. Your contributions will:

  • Deliver clinical trials on time, on budget, and in alignment with ethical and regulatory standards.

  • Provide executives and stakeholders with clear, actionable insights to guide decision-making.

  • Build strong vendor and partner relationships that enable reliable, high-quality trial execution.

  • Strengthen operational excellence by creating scalable processes that reduce risk and increase efficiency.

  • Support and elevate clinical staff through effective training, knowledge-sharing, and cross-functional collaboration.

Your stewardship of clinical trial operations will ensure Sanmai’s innovations reach patients responsibly, advancing our mission to transform mental health with excellence and care.

Responsibilities

Trial Planning & Execution

  • Own the operational plan for assigned clinical trials, including scope, deliverables, and milestones.

  • Translate clinical protocols into actionable plans that guide teams and vendors.

  • Anticipate risks and implement mitigation strategies to keep trials on track.

Timeline & Budget Management

  • Be accountable for maintaining project schedules and ensuring critical deadlines are met.

  • Own trial budgets, from forecasting to ongoing tracking, ensuring financial responsibility.

  • Approve and reconcile invoices from vendors and consultants.

Vendor & Resource Oversight

  • Hold vendors accountable to timelines, deliverables, and quality standards.

  • Ensure internal resources are effectively allocated across trials.

Documentation & Compliance

  • Oversee the preparation, review, and maintenance of all study-related documents.

  • Ensure documentation is audit-ready and aligned with SOPs, IRB protocols, and regulatory standards.

  • Partner with document control to manage content lifecycle.

Executive & Team Communication

  • Provide efficient, high-quality updates to the executive team on progress, risks, and resource needs.

  • Lead cross-functional meetings, ensure decisions are captured, and drive follow-through on action items.

  • Act as the central point of accountability for project status across stakeholders.

Clinical Team Support & Development

  • Contribute to training and onboarding of clinical staff.

  • Share knowledge, processes, and tools that strengthen trial execution capability.

  • Build a culture of accountability and ethical responsibility in clinical operations.

Ethics & Quality Assurance

  • Ensure all research is conducted ethically, aligned with IRB-approved protocols.

  • Own the monitoring of study conduct to ensure data quality and participant safety.

  • Lead by example in upholding Sanmai’s standards of integrity.

Continuous Improvement & Innovation

  • Identify opportunities to improve trial procedures, efficiency, and effectiveness.

  • Champion initiatives that enhance quality and reduce operational risk.

  • Contribute to broader clinical operations best practices within Sanmai.

Qualifications

 Experience

  • 4+ years of clinical project management experience, including direct ownership of early-phase trials.

  • Demonstrated success coordinating multi-location and international teams.

  • Proven ability to manage vendors, consultants, and cross-functional internal teams.

Skills

  • Strong project management capabilities across budgeting, scheduling, risk management, and resource planning.

  • Proficiency in clinical research concepts, practices, and FDA regulations, with working knowledge of IRB processes and Good Clinical Practice (GCP).

  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to present effectively to executive stakeholders.

  • Highly organized, detail-oriented, and comfortable managing multiple priorities in fast-paced environments.

Education

  • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Life Sciences, Public Health, Clinical Research, or a related field.

  • Advanced training or certification in project management (e.g., PMP, PRINCE2) is a plus.

Attributes

  • High degree of autonomy, reliability, and personal accountability.

  • Solution-oriented mindset with a bias toward action.

  • Collaborative team player who builds trust across departments.

  • Desire to work in a dynamic, trailblazing, small-team environment.