Senior Technical Program Manager

Description

The company is a global media and entertainment business with three segments: Studios, Direct-to-Consumer and TV Media, and a portfolio of well-known brands.

This senior individual-contributor role leads cross-functional technical programs across product, technology, design and product operations. The work runs over multiple quarters and often has no single functional owner. The role reports to the Senior Director of Technical Program Management.

The job is hands-on. You define the problem, set program strategy, understand the systems involved, challenge weak assumptions and drive measurable results through delivery, launch, adoption and iteration. Coordination alone is not enough.

In your first 90 days, map the portfolio, systems, stakeholders, constraints and open decisions, and build credibility with technical and product leaders. By 6 months, run several high-stakes programs with reliable visibility and few surprises. By 12 months, deliver measurable results and leave behind reusable planning and decision patterns.

Responsibilities

• Lead high-priority programs across organizations, from early problem framing through launch, adoption and measured business or customer impact.
• Turn broad goals into program strategy, outcome metrics, decision rights, sequencing, governance and executable plans.
• Maintain integrated plans, dependencies, critical paths, decision logs, risk views and executive narratives that show the true state of the work.
• Identify the technical, product, organizational and operational constraints that will decide success, then resolve them or get the right leader to decide quickly.
• Align senior leaders, including VPs, on priorities and trade-offs, remove blockers, and build lasting agreement without relying on formal authority.
• Switch between programs and levels of detail within a day while keeping context, commitments and follow-through.
• Design a lean operating model for each program: enough structure to move fast and safely, with no extra process.
• Build trusted relationships with Product, Engineering, Design, Product Operations, Architecture, Data, Security, Editorial, Revenue and partner teams.
• Raise the quality of program leadership through sound judgment, direct communication, technical curiosity and disciplined execution.
• Frame customer, editorial, operational or business problems before choosing solutions, and tie program work to a clear value hypothesis.
• Work with Product and Design on outcomes, success measures, experience principles, scope and the smallest credible path to learning or value.
• Test priorities against customer impact, strategic fit, technical leverage, cost, risk, reversibility and opportunity cost.
• Turn product strategy into a delivery plan covering discovery, design, engineering, operational readiness, launch, measurement and follow-up, not only a milestone schedule.
• Work with Product Operations on planning, decisions, portfolio visibility, adoption, feedback loops and repeatable ways of working.
• Recognize whether a program needs a product decision, a technical decision, an operating model change or an executive trade-off, and start the right conversation.
• Present complex situations to senior leaders: what changed, why it matters, the options, your recommendation and the decision needed.
• Escalate early and bring options, not status alone.
• Bring together leaders with different goals and vocabularies, and surface disagreement instead of false consensus.
• Make decisions within your mandate, and know when you need more input or explicit executive sponsorship.
• Keep quality high and accountability clear under ambiguity, organizational change and shifting priorities.
• Create an environment where teams raise risks and decide quickly while staying transparent.
• Engage engineers and architects as a credible peer. Read, write, review and reason about code, and use AI-assisted code when it is the quickest way to check an assumption, automate work, inspect data, reproduce a problem or demonstrate a solution.
• Evaluate architecture, service boundaries, API contracts, event flows, data models, cloud infrastructure, security, reliability and integration risk well enough to shape the plan. Lead technical discovery and spot plans that are incomplete or unrealistic.
• Use data to separate symptoms from root causes, and challenge estimates, assumptions and dependencies constructively.
• Explain technical choices and their consequences in terms that product, design, operations and executive stakeholders can act on.

Requirements

• At least 5 years leading complex technical programs at principal or senior scope in a matrixed organization.
• A strong software engineering background or equivalent hands-on technical experience, including passing a practical coding assessment.
• Can follow architecture and implementation details, ask precise technical questions, and turn technical realities into program strategy.
• Strong product judgment: problem framing, customer thinking, prioritization, metrics, experimentation and trade-off analysis.
• A track record of driving outcomes across Product, Engineering, Design and Operations, from ambiguity through launch and adoption.
• Experience influencing Directors, VPs and other senior leaders with clear reasoning, evidence, firm recommendations and persistent follow-through.
• Independent and accountable, quick to switch context, and able to learn a new domain and organization fast.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including executive updates, decision documents, program narratives and facilitating hard conversations.
• Practical about process: rigorous when risk and complexity require it, light when speed and learning matter more.
• Preferred: previous experience as a software engineer, engineering lead, architect, technical product manager or similar technical role.
• Preferred: experience with large consumer digital products, media or publishing systems, subscriptions, advertising, data platforms, AI-enabled products or platform modernization.
• Preferred: experience leading programs that change both technology and the way teams plan, make decisions or operate.
• Preferred: experience working across multiple time zones, business units, vendors or shared-platform organizations.
• Preferred: comfort with modern development, analytics, planning and collaboration tools, used to check work directly rather than relying only on reported status.

Conditions

The hiring salary range is $103,700.00 to $165,900.00 per year. Actual pay depends on location, external market data, internal equity, skill set, experience, training, education and performance.

The interview process includes a practical coding assessment, a product thinking exercise, a technical program deep dive and a leadership and influence discussion.

This is an existing open position.

Qualified candidates with a disability can request accommodations during the application and recruitment process.

Benefits

• Annual bonuses, short- and long-term incentives and program-specific awards may apply, with base pay as one part of total compensation.
• Health insurance coverage, an employee wellness program, life and disability insurance and a retirement savings plan.
• Paid holidays, sick time and vacation.