Senior Technical Program Manager

About the Role

As a Senior Technical Program Manager, you will be a key force-multiplier within Confluent's engineering organization. Your primary responsibility is leading the execution of high-priority, "cannot-fail" programs. This role requires driving crucial cross-functional alignment across Product, Engineering, Finance and Security teams to build the foundational "central nervous system" for modern enterprises.

What You Will Do

• Drive Complex Initiatives: Lead the end-to-end delivery of large-scale technical projects, such as Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery, Cost and Efficiency or platform-wide architecture shifts.
• Technical Liaison: Translate high-level business goals into detailed technical requirements and communicate complex architecture trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders.
• Operational Excellence: Establish rigorous program management standards, including clear milestones, KPIs, and risk-mitigation strategies to ensure predictable delivery.
• Strategic Alignment: Partner with leadership to prioritize the roadmap, resolve cross-team dependencies, and manage resource allocation for business-critical programs.
• Stakeholder Management: Facilitate decision-making across global, distributed teams and manage relationships with key internal and external partners.

What You Will Bring

• Experience: 5-8+ years in a technical program management role, specifically within cloud-native or high-scale software environments.
• Technical Deep-Dive: Deep understanding of distributed systems, cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), and data streaming technologies like Apache Kafka.
• Leadership Style: Alignment with Confluent’s values: Smart, Humble, and Empathetic; you thrive in fast-paced environments and "Get Stuff Done".
• Proactive Problem-Solving: A results-driven mindset with the ability to navigate ambiguity and take initiative to drive efficiencies.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Proven ability to work across engineering, product, Finance, and data teams to align on goals and deliver cost savings.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.

What Gives You An Edge

• Experience with cost management tools or frameworks in large-scale infrastructure environments.
• Familiarity with Confluent or other large-scale platforms.
• Experience in building dashboards using JQL, SQL, Data Studio, BigQuery is highly desirable.

Key skills/competency

• Technical Program Management
• Distributed Systems
• Cloud Platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure)
• Apache Kafka
• Cross-functional Leadership
• Risk Mitigation
• Stakeholder Management
• Operational Excellence
• Strategic Planning
• Cost Management