Principal Technical Program Management

Description

Join Axon and be a Force for Good.

At Axon, we’re on a mission to Protect Life. We’re explorers, pursuing society’s most critical safety and justice issues with our ecosystem of devices and cloud software. Like our products, we work better together. We connect with candor and care, seeking out diverse perspectives from our customers, communities and each other.

Life at Axon is fast-paced, challenging and meaningful. Here, you’ll take ownership and drive real change. Constantly grow as you work hard for a mission that matters at a company where you matter.

Join Axon and be a Force for Good

At Axon, we're on a mission to Protect Life. We're explorers, pursuing society's most critical safety and justice issues with our ecosystem of devices and cloud software. Like our products, we work better together. We connect with candor and care, seeking out diverse perspectives from our customers, communities and each other.

Life at Axon is fast-paced, challenging and meaningful. Here, you'll take ownership and drive real change. Constantly grow as you work hard for a mission that matters at a company where you matter.

Your Impact

As a Principal Technical Program Manager on the Real-Time Operations team, you will own highly complex and ambiguous technical programs that span multiple teams and pillars. You will own the outcome the program exists to deliver and serve as a trusted partner to product, engineering and senior leadership.

You will partner with engineering and product management to drive programs from inception through design, development, deployment and post-production. You will translate early ideas and proposals into executable plans with clear requirements, milestones, dependencies and success metrics.

At this level, the problems we hand you may not have a clear requirements document, a defined owner or an obvious path forward. You will identify problems and opportunities before requirements exist, bring structure to ambiguity, build alignment across teams and drive commitments that move the work forward.

You will own end-to-end technical requirements, help engineering teams evaluate architectural trade-offs and ensure decisions are made with scalability, reliability, availability and long-term maintainability in mind.

The Real-Time Operations team builds, deploys and maintains products for emergency responders, specifically built around the Axon Fusus platform. Because every second counts for our customers, any production outage, functional regression or performance degradation that lasts even a few minutes can have a real impact.

The ideal candidate builds trusted relationships across a wide range of personalities, holds people to their commitments, and has the technical credibility to be respected by engineers and the executive presence to be heard by senior leaders.

Responsibilities

• Own highly complex technical programs across teams and pillars, from strategy and early definition through launch and post-production.
• Translate ambiguous business and technical problems into clear requirements, plans, milestones, dependencies and measurable outcomes.
• Own program plans, schedules, resourcing and change management while holding teams accountable for committed deliverables.
• Foresee, manage and mitigate risks across teams and pillars.
• Track cross-team dependencies, identify opportunities to parallelize work, delegate risk ownership and create clear escalation paths.
• Define program success metrics, measure progress against them and communicate results to leadership.
• Own end-to-end technical requirements and bring engineering teams together on system design and architecture.
• Help teams evaluate decisions involving data stores, caching, technical stacks, system boundaries and where business logic should live.
• Lead technical discussions focused on scalability, reliability, availability and long-term maintainability.
• Drive technical trade-off discussions with leaders using sound technical judgment and sufficient technical depth.
• Partner with business, legal, information security and policy stakeholders early so programs are positioned for long-term success.
• Own status and strategy communication for your programs and present at MBRs and senior review forums.
• Advise product and engineering directors and VPs on program risks, sequencing, dependencies and execution strategy.
• Build and improve the architecture, process and program documentation required to keep complex programs moving.
• Define and improve TPM artifacts, tools and mechanisms that can be reused across teams.
• Identify opportunities to use AI to accelerate execution, decision-making and program management practices.
• Mentor TPMs and educate teams across R&D on strong program management practices.
• Interview and calibrate candidates for senior TPM, engineering and leadership roles.
• Work effectively with teams across multiple time zones.
• What Success Looks Like
• Within 90 days: You own your portfolio or initiative and have developed a clear written assessment of its current state, risks, dependencies and opportunities that leadership can act on.
• Within 6 months: Cross-pillar commitments are clear and holding. Leaders use your reporting to make decisions and adjust priorities when needed.
• Within 12 months: You have delivered measurable results across multiple teams or pillars, and the mechanisms you created are being reused by other programs or TPMs.
• What You Bring
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Science or a related field. Master's or PhD optional.
• 10+ years of experience managing complex software or hardware/software delivery.
• 2 to 3 years of experience as a technical individual contributor, engineer or equivalent hands-on technical role, or comparable technical depth developed through your career.
• A record of leading large, cross-team or cross-pillar technical programs with significant ambiguity and executive visibility.
• Deep technical judgment and the ability to evaluate end-to-end designs, identify risks in technical decisions and engage credibly with senior engineers.
• Strong command of program management practices, including multiple delivery methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban, and the judgment to determine which approach fits the problem.
• Proven ability to manage risks, dependencies, milestones and status reporting across complex programs.
• Experience advising product and engineering leaders and presenting program strategy to senior leadership.
• Proven ability to work through ambiguity, define the problem and establish direction before complete requirements exist.
• Strong influencing and interpersonal skills, including mentoring, coaching and building consensus among stakeholders who may disagree.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience working across multiple time zones and distributed teams.
• Preference for experience with enterprise SaaS or other mission-critical software.
• A connection to Axon's values and our mission to tackle public safety's biggest challenges.
• How You Operate
• Own It. You take responsibility for outcomes no one else is positioned to own.
• Join Forces. You build consensus among leaders and teams who may not initially agree.
• Be Obsessed. You stay anchored to the customer outcome.
• Aim Far. You identify problems before they have requirements and help shape the direction.
• Expect Candor. You challenge senior people respectfully and plainly.
• Mechanism Builder. You build tools and processes that continue working when you are not in the room.

Conditions

Reports to: Sr. Director of Technical Program Management

Direct reports: None

Benefits

• Competitive salary and 401k with employer match
• Discretionary paid time off
• Paid parental leave for all
• Medical, Dental, Vision plans
• Fitness Programs
• Emotional & Mental Wellness support
• Learning & Development programs
• And yes, we have snacks in our offices
• Benefits listed herein may vary depending on the nature of your employment and the location where you work.
• Axon is a total compensation company, meaning compensation is made up of base pay, bonus, and stock awards. The actual base pay is dependent upon many factors, such as: level, function, training, transferable skills, work experience, business needs, geographic market, and often a combination of all these factors. Our benefits offer an array of options to help support you physically, financially and emotionally through the big milestones and in your everyday life. To see more details on our benefits offerings please visit https://www.axon.com/careers .
• Base Pay Range
• $181,125 - $289,800 USD
• Don’t meet every single requirement? That's ok. At Axon, we Aim Far. We think big with a long-term view because we want to reinvent the world to be a safer, better place. We are also committed to building diverse teams that reflect the communities we serve.
• Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they check every box in the job description. If you’re excited about this role and our mission to Protect Life but your experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification listed here, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.
• Important Notes
• The above job description is not intended as, nor should it be construed as, exhaustive of all duties, responsibilities, skills, efforts, or working conditions associated with this job. The job description may change or be supplemented at any time in accordance with business needs and conditions.
• Some roles may also require legal eligibility to work in a firearms environment.
• Axon’s mission is to Protect Life and is committed to the well-being and safety of its employees as well as Axon’s impact on the environment. All Axon employees must be aware of and committed to the appropriate environmental, health, and safety regulations, policies, and procedures. Axon employees are empowered to report safety concerns as they arise and activities potentially impacting the environment.
• We are an equal opportunity employer that promotes justice, advances equity, values diversity and fosters inclusion. We’re committed to hiring the best talent — regardless of race, creed, color, ancestry, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship status, marital status, disability, gender identity, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances — and empowering all of our employees so they can do their best work. If you have a disability or special need that requires assistance or accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please email recruitingops@axon.com. Please note that this email address is for accommodation purposes only. Axon will not respond to inquiries for other purposes.
• Phishing alert: Axon will never ask you to pay for any part of the hiring process, including training, equipment, or background checks. We do not make job offers via text message, WhatsApp, or instant messaging platforms without a formal interview process. All legitimate job openings are listed on our official careers page at https://www.axon.com/careers . If you receive a suspicious offer or outreach from an email address that is not @axon.com , or if you are asked for sensitive personal information (bank details, Social Security Number) prematurely, please ignore the message and report it to recruitingops@axon.com .