Sr. Staff Technical Program Manager - Ads (Canada )

Shopify; Canada; Hybrid; CAD 140,000 - 195,000; Full time

Job summary

Shopify seeks a Sr. Staff Technical Program Manager – Ads to lead large-scale technical programs across the ads ecosystem.

You will drive end-to-end execution, partner with product, data science, and engineering, and shape platform capabilities that connect merchants, advertisers, and audiences. You will navigate complex architectures, surface trade-offs, and deliver measurable business outcomes while maintaining customer trust and security.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in technical program management, software engineering, or technical product management with delivery of complex programs across multiple engineering teams.
• Ability to drive large, cross-organizational initiatives from strategy through execution and measurable outcomes.
• Strong technical judgment and engagement in architecture discussions involving distributed systems and data platforms.
• Experience translating business objectives into technical roadmaps, with prioritized execution across interdependent teams.
• Ability to use data and analytical reasoning to evaluate trade-offs and guide decisions.
• Proven ability to influence without authority and drive decisions in ambiguous environments.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills for diverse stakeholders.
• Experience establishing program management mechanisms, risk management, and launch readiness.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted development tools and responsible AI considerations.

Responsibilities

• Drive end-to-end technical program execution across cross-functional teams from problem definition to launch and optimization.
• Translate strategic priorities into executable roadmaps with measurable outcomes for merchants and advertisers.
• Understand system architecture, APIs, data flows, and distributed services to evaluate options and surface trade-offs.
• Build scalable advertising platform capabilities across ad serving, targeting, measurement, and data infrastructure.
• Define success metrics with Data Science and Analytics teams and turn insights into actionable decisions.
• Lead across Engineering, Product, Data Science, Infrastructure, and business units to align priorities and drive accountability.
• Improve operational visibility and launch readiness through lightweight governance and automation.
• Apply AI tools to accelerate discovery, prototyping, and problem solving while ensuring privacy and security.

Skills

Technical program management

Cross-functional leadership

System architecture & design

Data-driven decision making

Operational excellence

AI tools familiarity

Effective communication

Tools

Cursor

Claude

ChatGPT

Perplexity

Job description

About The Role

Sr. Staff Technical Program Manager – Ads

About Shopify

Opportunity is not evenly distributed. Shopify puts independence within reach for anyone with a dream to start a business. Since 2006, we've grown to 10,000 employees and generated over $500 billion in sales for millions of merchants in 175 countries. This is life-defining work that directly impacts people's lives as much as it transforms your own. This is putting the power of the few in the hands of the many, creating a future with more voices and more choices.

About You

Moving at our pace brings a lot of change, complexity, and ambiguity—and a little bit of chaos. Shopifolk thrive on that and are comfortable being uncomfortable. That means Shopify is not the right place for everyone. Before you apply, consider if you can:

• Care deeply about what you do and about making commerce better for everyone.
• Excel by seeking professional and personal hypergrowth.
• Keep up with an unrelenting pace—the week, not the quarter.
• Be resilient and resourceful in the face of ambiguity and thrive on, rather than endure, change.
• Bring critical thought and opinion, and embrace differences and disagreement to get shit done and move forward.
• Work digital-first in your daily work.

Shopify's Technical Program Managers (TPMs) lead large-scale technical programs that build exceptional products for our merchants, enable entrepreneurship, and create new value for the world. TPMs drive execution, technical alignment, and measurable business impact across organizational boundaries, keeping teams focused on the highest-value outcomes and moving at the speed of a startup.

As a TPM supporting Ads, you'll partner with Engineering, Product, Data Science, and business stakeholders to build and scale the advertising technology that connects merchants, advertisers, and audiences. You'll help shape and deliver the platform capabilities that power relevant advertising experiences, improve campaign performance, and create sustainable business growth while protecting the customer experience.

This role goes beyond coordinating schedules and tracking milestones. You'll bring technical judgment to complex problems, connect platform architecture and product strategy to business outcomes, and drive execution across interdependent teams. You'll help teams navigate ambiguity, make informed trade-offs, identify risks early, and turn complex technical initiatives into clear, actionable plans that deliver results.

You'll operate across the advertising lifecycle, which may include ad delivery and serving, targeting and personalization, campaign management, measurement and attribution, experimentation, data and ML infrastructure, monetization, and platform reliability. You'll help establish the technical foundations and operating mechanisms needed to scale Shopify's advertising capabilities efficiently and responsibly.

We assess team fit and level throughout our interview process to ensure the best match for both candidates and our teams.

What You’ll Do

• Drive end-to-end technical program execution. Own complex, cross-functional programs from problem definition and technical discovery through planning, implementation, launch, adoption, and ongoing optimization. Establish clear goals, milestones, dependencies, owners, and success criteria.
• Connect technical delivery to business outcomes. Partner with Product, Engineering, and business leaders to translate strategic priorities into executable roadmaps and measurable outcomes, balancing merchant and advertiser value, revenue opportunity, customer experience, engineering investment, and time to market.
• Navigate complex technical systems. Work closely with engineering leaders to understand system architecture, APIs, data flows, distributed services, and technical constraints. Help teams evaluate solution options, surface trade-offs, resolve dependencies, and make informed decisions without taking ownership away from technical decision-makers.
• Build scalable advertising platform capabilities. Drive programs across relevant areas of the ads ecosystem, including ad serving and delivery, targeting and personalization, campaign and budget management, auction and optimization systems, measurement and attribution, experimentation, and advertising data infrastructure.
• Make data central to execution. Partner with Data Science, Analytics, and Engineering to define success metrics, establish instrumentation and reporting, evaluate experiments, identify performance gaps, and turn insights into actionable decisions. Connect technical progress to outcomes such as incremental revenue, advertiser performance, adoption, reliability, and customer experience.
• Lead through organizational complexity. Align teams across Engineering, Product, Data Science, Infrastructure, and business functions. Surface competing priorities, drive decisions, resolve blockers, and establish shared accountability across interdependent workstreams.
• Raise the bar on operational excellence. Establish lightweight, effective program mechanisms that improve visibility, decision-making, launch readiness, risk management, and execution predictability. Identify recurring bottlenecks and eliminate operational toil through better systems, automation, and repeatable practices.
• Build AI-native ways of working. Use AI tools and coding assistants to accelerate technical discovery, analyze information, prototype solutions, automate workflows, synthesize program signals, and identify emerging risks. Apply sound judgment, validate outputs, and account for privacy, security, and responsible AI requirements.
• Communicate with clarity and influence. Provide actionable visibility into program health, technical risks, decisions, trade-offs, and business impact. Tailor communication to engineers, cross-functional partners, and executive leadership, ensuring the right decisions happen at the right time.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in technical program management, software engineering, technical product management, or a related technical discipline, with a proven track record of delivering complex programs involving multiple engineering teams.
• Demonstrated ability to drive large, cross-organizational initiatives from strategy and problem definition through technical execution, launch, and measurable outcomes.
• Strong technical judgment and the ability to engage meaningfully in architecture and design discussions involving distributed systems, APIs, data platforms, or other complex software systems.
• Experience translating business objectives into technical roadmaps, clear program plans, measurable success criteria, and prioritized execution across interdependent teams.
• Ability to use data and analytical reasoning to evaluate trade-offs, assess program performance, identify risks, and guide decisions.
• Proven ability to influence without authority, build alignment across diverse stakeholders, navigate competing priorities, and drive decisions through ambiguity.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical concepts and communicate program status, risks, and recommendations to technical and executive audiences.
• Experience building effective program management mechanisms, including dependency and risk management, milestone tracking, launch readiness, executive reporting, and continuous improvement.
• A proactive, resourceful approach to problem-solving, with a bias toward action, accountability, and delivering meaningful results rather than process for its own sake.
• Familiarity with AI-powered tools and coding assistants such as Cursor, Claude, ChatGPT, or Perplexity, with the ability to apply them thoughtfully to technical problem‑solving and program execution.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in digital advertising, advertising technology, ad platforms, commerce media, marketplace monetization, or performance marketing.
• Familiarity with one or more areas of the advertising lifecycle, such as ad serving, targeting and personalization, campaign management, auction and bidding systems, measurement and attribution, experimentation, or revenue optimization.
• Experience working with Data Science, Machine Learning, or Analytics teams to deliver data-driven products, experimentation platforms, optimization systems, or ML-powered capabilities.
• Experience operating large-scale, revenue‑critical platforms where reliability, latency, scalability, data quality, and customer experience are important considerations.
• Experience defining and tracking business and technical metrics, such as incremental revenue, adoption, advertiser performance, conversion, experimentation outcomes, service reliability, or operational efficiency.
• Experience leading platform migrations, system modernization, partner integrations, or multi‑team initiatives involving complex technical dependencies.
• Experience using AI‑assisted development, data analysis, automation, or rapid prototyping to improve execution speed and decision quality.

We may use AI-enabled tools to screen, select, and assess applications. All AI outputs are reviewed and validated by our recruitment team.