Technical Program Manager

Job Description

Job Description

Technical Program Manager About the Role

We are seeking a highly experienced  Technical Program Manager to lead strategic, large-scale engineering initiatives across multiple teams, systems, and business lines. In this role, you will operate with a high degree of autonomy and set the standard for program execution across the organization.

You will serve as a trusted partner to senior engineering and product leaders, helping shape roadmaps, guide resourcing decisions, manage complex dependencies, and deliver programs with significant business impact. The ideal candidate combines strong technical intuition, organizational influence, executive presence, and a proven ability to deliver complex initiatives at scale.

Location:  Onsite in Foster City, CA
Shift: 1st, Monday - Friday
Pay Rate: $85.00 - $88.00/hour
Type:  Contract What You’ll Do

• Lead end-to-end program management for large-scale, multi-team engineering initiatives, from strategy and planning through execution and delivery.
• Partner with VP- and Director-level engineering and product leaders to influence roadmaps, resourcing decisions, priorities, and execution strategies.
• Define, implement, and continuously improve program management frameworks, processes, tooling, and best practices across the engineering organization.
• Drive alignment across complex dependency landscapes involving multiple teams, systems, external partners, and competing priorities.
• Identify, assess, and proactively manage risks, escalations, trade-offs, and delivery constraints at the program and portfolio levels.
• Communicate clearly and confidently with executive audiences, translating technical complexity into business impact and business priorities into actionable technical objectives.
• Participate in architectural and technical scoping discussions, providing informed guidance on feasibility, sequencing, dependencies, and delivery risk.
• Establish operating rhythms, milestones, success metrics, and governance models that support predictable program execution.
• Bring clarity to ambiguous, fast-moving situations and help teams make sound, timely decisions.
• Use AI tools to evaluate technical designs, assess code changes, support decision-making, and improve program execution.
• Incorporate AI chatbots and agentic AI models into program planning, analysis, communication, and delivery workflows.

What You’ll Bring

• 7+ years of experience in technical program management, with a demonstrated record of delivering complex, organization-wide engineering programs.
• Deep experience managing multi-team software programs across the full software development lifecycle.
• Experience leading large-scale platform, infrastructure, networking, wireless, or product engineering initiatives.
• A strong technical foundation and the ability to engage credibly in architectural discussions, understand system design trade-offs, and evaluate technical risk.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to influence without authority and communicate effectively with executive stakeholders.
• Experience building or improving program management processes, operating models, and tooling at an organizational level.
• Demonstrated ability to manage ambiguity, create clarity, prioritize effectively, and make sound decisions under pressure.
• Practical experience using AI tools to support technical analysis, design evaluation, code-change assessment, and informed decision-making.
• Understanding of agentic AI models and experience executing programs with AI chatbots or similar AI-assisted tools.

Technical Expertise

Experience or strong working knowledge in the following areas is required:

Wireless Technologies

• 4G and 5G technologies
• Multi-WAN load balancing

Networking Technologies

• UDP and TCP
• NAT traversal
• Network security, including mutual TLS (mTLS)

Data Pipelines and Cloud Infrastructure

• Apache Kafka, including kafkajs
• Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) serialization
• AWS cloud infrastructure
• API gateways and related distributed systems components

Bonus Qualifications

• Experience working at a software company on infrastructure, platform, or product engineering programs.
• Familiarity with AWS, GCP, Azure, or other cloud service platforms.
• Understanding of distributed systems concepts and architectures.
• PMP, PgMP, Agile, or Scrum certification.
• Previous experience as a software engineer or in another technical role.
• Strong problem-solving, troubleshooting, and debugging skills.

Success in This Role

Success in this role means delivering complex, high-impact engineering programs with clarity, predictability, and strong cross-functional alignment. You will help teams navigate technical and organizational complexity while establishing scalable program management practices that improve execution across the engineering organization.

As part of our promise to talent, Kelly supports those who work with us through a variety of benefits, perks, and work-related resources. Please note: The following benefits reflect Kelly's general offerings. Eligibility may vary by assignment, location, and job type. Kelly offers eligible employees voluntary benefit plans including medical, dental, vision, telemedicine, term life, whole life, accident insurance, critical illness, a legal plan, and short-term disability. As a Kelly employee, you will have access to a retirement savings plan, service bonus and holiday pay plans (earn up to eight paid holidays per benefit year), and a transit spending account. In addition, employees are entitled to earn paid sick leave under the applicable state or local plan. Click here for more information on benefits and perks that may be available to you as a member of the Kelly Talent Community.

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