Senior Technical Program Manager

Senior Program Manager - Technical

If you're passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our countryand you're committed to working hard to play your part in building that futureconsider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:

Grade: Technical 410 Pay Range: $143,700.00 - $222,700.00

Job Description

The Senior Program Manager - Technical leads very complex, multi-team technology programs from concept through delivery, ensuring alignment across engineering, architecture, product, security, and business stakeholders. This role drives and delivers on program strategy, manages technical dependencies at scale, and ensures delivery of high quality, secure, resilient solutions that meet business objectives. This role blends profound technical understanding with program leadership, Agile methodology expertise, and strong cross functional communication. They anticipate risks, tactfully remove impediments, guide teams through ambiguity, and connect long term program roadmaps to organizational goals. This is a role that operates with complete autonomy and influence, serving as a bridge between large, stratified technical teams and business leaders to ensure technology investments deliver measurable value at scale.

Duties

• Lead the end-to-end planning and delivery of complex, multiteam technology programs, ensuring clear scope, objectives, and success criteria.
• Partner and collaborate with engineering, architecture, product, and business teams to define program requirements, technical direction, and integrated delivery plans.
• Coordinate cross team workstreams, manage dependencies, and drive alignment on technical milestones, sequencing, and key decisions.
• Facilitate Agile and SAFe program activities, including PI planning, backlog refinement, dependency management, and program level retrospectives.
• Identify and mitigate risks, blockers, and technical challenges early; escalate issues early, appropriately, and drive resolution.
• Deliver clear, consistent communication of program status, risks, decisions, and impacts to stakeholders and high-level leadership.
• Responsible for ensuring solutions comply with enterprise security standards, technical design patterns, and operational readiness requirements.
• Lead and coordinate change management activities, including training, readiness planning, and adoption support for impacted teams.
• Maintain accurate program documentation, including roadmaps, decision logs, requirements, risks, and performance metrics.
• Conduct post-implementation validation with all parties and help measure program outcomes against expected business value.
• Performs other job-related duties as assigned.

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities

• Strong understanding of software development lifecycle, systems architecture, integrations, cloud concepts, and technical design patterns.
• Great at engaging with engineering teams, understand technical trade offs, and translate complex concepts for diverse audiences.
• Ability to manage multi team technical programs using Agile/ SAFe frameworks.
• Profoundly skilled in planning, dependency management, risk management, and cross team coordination.
• Proficient with Jira, Confluence, and other delivery lifecycle and visualization tools.
• Strong presence, collaboration, and facilitation skills with the ability to lead through influence rather than authority.
• Effective at navigating ambiguity, driving alignment, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
• Excellent verbal and written communication, including the ability to create clear executive summaries.
• Advanced analytical and problem-solving abilities, with a data informed approach to decision making.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelors Degree in Business, Management Information Systems, Computer Science, or a related field
• Equivalent relevant experience performing the essential functions of this job may substitute for education degree requirements. Generally, equivalent relevant experience is defined as 1 year of experience for 1 year of education and is the discretion of the hiring manager.

Experience

• 8 + years of progressive project management experience
• Proven experience leading technical projects or programs in an Agile environment.
• Proven ability to work closely with engineering teams and understand technical architecture concepts.
• Strong experience with Jira, Confluence, or other Agile lifecycle tools.
• Strong experience influencing without authority in highly matrixed organizations.
• Experience managing large-scale, multi-team technical programs and initiatives.

Preferred Qualifications

• SAFe, PMP, ACP, CSM, or equivalent Agile/PM certifications.
• Experience with cloud technologies (Azure, AWS, GCP), APIs, microservices, or enterprise integrations.
• Equivalent relevant experience performing the essential functions of this job may substitute for education degree requirements. Generally, equivalent relevant experience is defined as 1 year of experience for 1 year of education and is the discretion of the hiring manager.

This position requires occasional travel of up to 20%, including required attendance at designated company summits (typically one to two per year). Additional travel may include conferences, visits to company locations, and other business-related events as needed. Additional travel may be assigned as needed to support business requirements.