Principal Program Manager, Business Operations
Zillow
Job Overview
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Job Description
About The Team
The Zillow Preferred team is at the heart of Zillow’s partner-led growth, designing how high-performing real estate teams deliver more connected experiences for our shared customers. Business Operations plays a pivotal role in advancing Zillow’s mission to build the future of integrated transactions by developing scalable programs, tools, and operational strategies that empower teams to operate efficiently and effectively. Our focus is on driving partner success, optimizing return on investment, and ensuring program policies and compliance scale with the business, while fostering cross-functional relationships to solve complex challenges and deliver high-impact solutions.
About The Role
As Principal Program Manager, Business Operations, you will lead high-impact, cross-functional initiatives that protect revenue, ensure compliance, and enable the Preferred program to scale sustainably from strategy through execution. You will operate at the intersection of Product, Business Operations, Legal, Finance, and GTM teams, managing initiatives where execution quality directly impacts revenue integrity, regulatory posture, and long-term program scalability. This role requires a hypothesis-driven approach to problem solving, the ability to connect diverse inputs to identify opportunities, and clear communication of tradeoffs at the leadership level. Success is achieved through collaborative influence, strong partnerships, analytical rigor, and translating strategy into operational reality.
You Will Get To
- Identify, validate, and implement strategic solutions for new concepts, programs, and policies to optimize business performance, using analysis, research, pilots, and proof-of-concept testing.
- Lead large-scale, cross-functional initiatives from concept through execution by defining scope, developing project plans, managing workstreams, conducting impact analyses, and driving alignment through clear communications and leadership-level readouts.
- Drive data-informed decision-making by leading analyses of complex business and operational challenges, designing and implementing operational reporting and analytical proofs of concept.
- Develop and operationalize policy frameworks and assessment protocols for payment and compliance, partnering with legal, industry, and cross-functional teams to align business strategy, regulatory obligations, and program contract language.
- Proactively identify, evaluate, and mitigate revenue and programmatic risks. Create and implement policies to address outstanding payments, minimize contra revenue, and mitigate bad debt.
- Partner with Product and cross-functional teams to implement payment-related features and process improvements, supporting go-to-market and adoption strategies.
Who you are
- 10+ years of experience in strategy, business operations, analytics, or program management, with a track record of driving measurable business impact.
- Experience designing and refining program workflows and tooling, leveraging AI and automation to improve speed, quality, and visibility across cross-functional teams.
- Proven ability to break down complex, ambiguous problems, identify root causes, and deliver data-informed insights and innovative solutions.
- Experience leading business integration across Product, Legal, Finance, GTM, and Operations, aligning strategies, policies, processes, and systems for enterprise-scale execution and risk management.
- Skilled in cross-functional leadership, influencing without authority, navigating complex decision-making, and managing senior stakeholder relationships.
- Demonstrated success leading large, sophisticated cross-functional initiatives while balancing competing priorities in a fast-paced environment.
- Strong communication and presentation skills, with the ability to clearly articulate trade-offs, recommendations, and outcomes to diverse audiences.
- Highly proficient in modern project management, analytics, and reporting tools (e.g., Google Workspace, Jira, Excel, Salesforce, Tableau); SQL experience is a plus.
Key skills/competency
- Strategic Program Management
- Business Operations
- Cross-functional Leadership
- Revenue Protection
- Compliance Management
- Risk Mitigation
- Data-informed Decision Making
- Policy Development
- Stakeholder Relationship Management
- AI & Automation
How to Get Hired at Zillow
- Research Zillow's culture: Study their mission, values, recent news, and employee testimonials on LinkedIn and Glassdoor.
- Tailor your resume for business operations: Highlight experience in strategic solutions, cross-functional leadership, and compliance management, using keywords from the Principal Program Manager, Business Operations description.
- Showcase data-driven impact: Prepare examples demonstrating your ability to use analytics (SQL, Tableau) to solve complex problems and drive measurable business impact at Zillow.
- Prepare for behavioral questions: Reflect on experiences leading large-scale initiatives, influencing without authority, and managing senior stakeholders in fast-paced environments.
- Demonstrate Zillow-specific alignment: Articulate how your skills in revenue protection, policy development, and operational scaling directly contribute to Zillow's mission of integrated transactions.
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