Technical Program Manager (TPM)

Overview:


TekWissen is a global workforce management provider headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan that offers strategic talent solutions to our clients world-wide. Our client is a British-owned education publishing and assessment services company that serves schools, corporations, and students directly. The company owns several educational media brands, including Addison-Wesley, Peachpit, Prentice Hall, eCollege, Longman, Scott Foresman, and others.


Job Title: Technical Program Manager (TPM)

Location: Remote

Duration: 5 Months

Job Type: Temporary Assignment

Work Type: Remote

Job Description:

ROLE SUMMARY

• We are looking for a seasoned Technical Program Manager (TPM) to drive the end-to-end execution of our platform modernization initiative - a high-visibility, multi-year transformation effort to re-architect and upgrade our core platform.
• This role sits at the intersection of engineering, architecture, and product, requiring someone who can translate technical complexity into clear program plans, manage dependencies across multiple engineering teams, and keep a large-scale modernization effort on track.
• The ideal candidate combines deep technical fluency with world-class program management discipline and has direct experience leading legacy platform migrations, re-architecture projects, or large-scale infrastructure modernization efforts.

Program Context

• The platform modernization program encompasses multiple concurrent workstreams including service decomposition, data migration, API modernization, infrastructure uplift, and legacy system decommission.
• This is a complex, high-stakes initiative with broad organizational impact and executive visibility.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Program Leadership

• Own the integrated program plan for the platform modernization, spanning architecture, engineering, data, infrastructure, and testing workstreams.
• Define and manage program milestones, critical path dependencies, and delivery commitments across multiple engineering squads.
• Translate technical architecture decisions and engineering constraints into program-level impacts on scope, schedule, and risk.
• Drive technical discovery sessions, architecture reviews, and workstream planning to maintain program momentum.
• Partner closely with Engineering Leads, Architects, and Product Managers to ensure technical strategy is reflected in the delivery roadmap.

Risk & Dependency Management

• Identify, track, and actively manage technical risks, blockers, and cross-team dependencies.
• Develop and maintain risk registers and mitigation plans, escalating to senior leadership when program health is at risk.
• Proactively identify sequencing conflicts and integration risks across workstreams and drive resolution.
• Coordinate with vendors, infrastructure providers, and third-party partners where applicable.

Stakeholder Communication & Governance

• Provide executive-level program reporting on progress, milestones, risks, and decisions required.
• Establish and run program governance forums including steering committees, working groups, and engineering sync rhythms.
• Communicate program status and impacts to business stakeholders across Product, Operations, and Customer Success.
• Maintain a clear RAID log (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies) and ensure timely resolution.

Cross-team Coordination

• Coordinate across multiple engineering teams working on concurrent modernization workstreams, ensuring alignment on shared services, APIs, and data contracts.
• Facilitate cross-team planning ceremonies (program increment planning, dependency mapping, retrospectives).
• Work with QA, Security, and Compliance teams to ensure the modernization meets quality, security, and regulatory requirements.
• Coordinate cutover planning, migration sequencing, and legacy system decommission activities.

Process & Tooling

• Implement and maintain program dashboards, roadmaps, and reporting frameworks that provide real-time visibility into program health.
• Drive adoption of program management standards across engineering teams participating in the modernization.
• Maintain comprehensive program documentation including architecture decision records (ADRs), runbooks, and migration playbooks.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of Technical Program Management experience in software engineering or platform/infrastructure organizations.
• Direct, hands-on experience managing large-scale platform modernization, legacy migration, or re-architecture programs.
• Strong technical background - able to engage substantively with engineering teams on architecture, APIs, data models, and infrastructure concepts without requiring translation.
• Proven ability to manage programs with 5+ concurrent workstreams, multiple engineering teams, and complex interdependencies.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure modernization (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and cloud-native architectural patterns (microservices, event-driven, containers/Kubernetes).
• Proficiency with engineering program management tools: Jira, Confluence, Smartsheet, or equivalent.
• Excellent executive communication skills with demonstrated experience presenting program status to C-suite and VP-level stakeholders.
• Strong facilitation skills for cross-team planning, dependency resolution, and technical decision-making forums.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) or other enterprise agile program management frameworks.
• Background in data platform modernization, API gateway migration, or service mesh adoption.
• Experience coordinating DevSecOps practices and security/compliance requirements within modernization programs.
• Familiarity with database migration strategies (e.g., lift-and-shift, strangler fig, event sourcing).
• PMP, PgMP, SAFe SPC, or equivalent certification.
• Prior experience as a software engineer, solutions architect, or technical lead.

What Success Looks Like

• The modernization program has a clear, credible integrated plan with milestones that are trusted by engineering and executive leadership alike.
• Cross-team dependencies are visible, actively managed, and rarely become blockers.
• Risks are surfaced early, mitigation plans are in place, and leadership is never surprised by program health.
• Engineering teams feel supported and unblocked, spending more time on technical execution than on coordination overhead.
• Key modernization milestones land on schedule with measurable improvement in platform reliability, scalability, or developer velocity.

TekWissen® Group is an equal opportunity employer supporting workforce diversity.