Staff Technical Program Manager

Tekion Corp; Chennai District; On-site; INR 2,500,000 - 6,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Tekion is seeking a Staff Technical Program Manager to own the cross-team delivery machinery for a 20-person AI native engineering organization. You will maintain the master delivery plan across two Scrum teams and shared resources, tracking dependencies and risks to enable fast, informed decisions by Engineering, Product, and Exec leadership.

Ideal candidates will have deep technical fluency, experience in multi-team SaaS programs, and strong communication to translate status into actionable

Qualifications

• 12+ years of technical program management experience across multi-team SaaS or platform environments.
• Ability to read architecture diagrams and evaluate API contract blockers.
• Experience with AI-native product delivery and non-deterministic outputs is a plus.
• Excellent written and executive-level communication.

Responsibilities

• Own the master delivery plan across two Scrum teams and shared resources.
• Track and resolve cross-team dependencies (ARC backend, OEM integrations).
• Run delivery rhythm: sprint reviews, dependency reviews, risk escalation.
• Identify and manage delivery risks with a live risk register.

Skills

Technical program management

Cross-team coordination

Stakeholder management

Agile/Scrum

AI/ML delivery

Architecture comprehension

Kafka data flows

API contracts

Executive communication

Tools

Java

Python

Kafka

Temporal

MCP Gateway

Job description

Positively disrupting an industry that has not seen any innovation in over 50 years, Tekion has challenged the paradigm with the first and fastest cloud-native automotive platform that includes the revolutionary Automotive Retail Cloud (ARC) for retailers, Automotive Enterprise Cloud (AEC) for manufacturers and other large automotive enterprises and Automotive Partner Cloud (APC) for technology and industry partners. Tekion connects the entire spectrum of the automotive retail ecosystem through one seamless platform. The transformative platform uses cutting-edge technology, big data, machine learning, and AI to seamlessly bring together OEMs, retailers/dealers and consumers. With its highly configurable integration and greater customer engagement capabilities, Tekion is enabling the best automotive retail experiences ever. Tekion employs close to 3,000 people across North America, Asia and Europe.

Job Introduction

We are seeking a Staff Technical Program Manager to own the cross-team delivery machinery for a 20-person AI native engineering organization. This is not a project coordination role — it is a technical program ownership role. You will maintain the master delivery plan across two Scrum teams and shared resources, track and resolve cross-team dependencies (platform teams, ARC backend, OEM integrations), manage risk before it becomes a miss, and create the delivery transparency that allows Engineering, Product, and Executive leadership to make fast, informed decisions. The best TPMs are invisible when things go well and indispensable when they don't.

Key Role & Responsibilities

• Own the master delivery plan: maintain the integrated roadmap across both Scrum teams, shared resources (Architect, ML, SDET), and external platform dependencies — with milestone-level clarity at all times.
• Track and resolve cross-team dependencies: Agentic Engine, Core Platform (Temporal, MCP Gateway, Component Framework), ARC backend (Kafka event contracts, API dependencies), Design (component specs), and external vendors (email/SMS providers).
• Run the delivery rhythm: sprint review calendar, cross-team sync cadence, dependency review meetings, and risk escalation forums — keeping the Director and VP Engineering informed without burying them in status updates.
• Identify, quantify, and manage delivery risks: surface blockers early, drive resolution with urgency, and maintain a live risk register with mitigation owners and timelines.
• Own cross-team technical communication: translate engineering status into language that Product, Business, and Executive stakeholders can act on — and translate business urgency back into engineering trade-off decisions.
• Drive the release process: define release criteria, coordinate go/no-go decisions with Engineering, QA (Staff SDET), and Product, and manage production deployments across services.
• Manage the dependency interface to the T1 Agentic Engine team: track which Intent, Skill, Policy, and MCP tool registrations are ready, which are blocked, and what the critical path impact is.
• Continuously improve the delivery system: identify bottlenecks in the engineering process, drive retrospectives, and implement changes that sustainably increase throughput and quality.

Basic Qualifications

• 12+ years of technical program management experience, with at least 3 years at Staff level managing multi team programs at SaaS or platform companies.
• Strong technical depth: able to read architecture diagrams, understand Kafka dependency graphs, evaluate API contract blockers, and participate credibly in engineering design discussions.
• Proven experience managing complex, multi-team delivery programs with many external dependencies — including platform dependencies outside your direct control.
• Expert facilitation of engineering delivery rituals: sprint planning, dependency reviews, release gates, post mortems, and architecture syncs.
• Deep understanding of AI-native product delivery: what makes AI system delivery different from traditional software (eval requirements, model versioning, non-deterministic outputs, golden dataset dependencies).
• Excellent written communication: can produce a crisp, executive-readable status update that tells the truth clearly and drives decisions.
• Strong stakeholder management across Engineering, Product, Design, and Executive levels — comfortable managing up, across, and down.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience managing delivery programs that involve both Java microservices and Python AI/ML engineering teams simultaneously.
• Familiarity with agentic AI platform concepts: intent registries, MCP tools, skill/policy authoring, and eval frameworks — enough to track technical dependency status accurately.
• Background in automotive retail technology or dealer management systems.
• Prior experience working in a US-India distributed engineering organization.
• Opportunity to work with some of the smartest minds to solve complex challenges at scale.
• Impactful role in shaping and securing a global, cloud-native & AI driven platform.
• Innovative, collaborative, and fast-paced culture.