Technical Program Manager
Horizontal Talent · Foster City, CA · Today
On-siteInformation Technology$39–$75/hrContract
About the role
We're looking for a Technical Program Manager to lead complex, high-impact engineering initiatives across multiple teams and business areas. This role offers the chance to shape program strategy, strengthen execution frameworks, and partner closely with senior leaders on work that spans the full software development lifecycle.
Responsibilities
- Guide large, cross-functional engineering programs from early planning through successful delivery.
- Partner with senior engineering and product leaders to influence priorities, sequencing, and resourcing decisions.
- Build and improve program management processes, standards, and tooling across the organization.
- Coordinate dependencies across teams, external partners, and competing initiatives to keep programs moving forward.
- Identify risks early, raise issues proactively, and help drive clear decisions on trade-offs and escalations.
- Communicate program status, technical context, and business impact clearly to executive audiences.
- Contribute to architectural and technical discussions by assessing feasibility, delivery risk, and implementation approach.
Skills
- 7+ years of experience in technical program management delivering complex engineering initiatives.
- Proven ability to manage multi-team software programs across the full software development lifecycle.
- Strong technical understanding and the ability to participate credibly in system design and architecture conversations.
- Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence stakeholders at all levels without direct authority.
- Experience managing ambiguity, aligning teams, and driving clarity in fast-paced environments.
- Ability to evaluate technical risk, support sound decision-making, and keep programs on track.
- Comfort using AI tools to support technical decision-making and program execution.
- Understanding of agentic AI models and how to apply AI chatbots effectively in program work.
- Knowledge of wireless technologies such as 4G/5G and multi-WAN load balancing.
- Familiarity with networking concepts including UDP/TCP, NAT traversal, and network security such as mTLS.
- Experience with data pipelines, including Kafka, Protobuf serialization, and AWS cloud infrastructure such as API Gateways.
Preferred Skills
- Background in infrastructure, platform, or product engineering programs.
- Experience with cloud environments such as AWS, GCP, or Azure.
- Knowledge of distributed systems concepts.
- PMP, PgMP, or Agile/Scrum certification.
- Prior experience as a software engineer or in another technical role.
- Strong problem-solving and debugging abilities.
Pay
The pay range for this role is $39 - $75 per hour based on qualifications and experience.