[Confluent] Senior Technical Program Manager

IBM; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM Software in San Diego seeks a Senior Technical Program Manager (TPM) to drive multi-team AI initiatives across Product, Security, Engineering leadership, and more. You will manage dependencies, plan, prioritize, report, and ensure on-time delivery of complex programs at scale.

The role requires cloud fundamentals, AI/ML concepts, and cross-functional leadership. You will shield teams from chaos, drive risk management, and help steer AI core features and platform reliability initiatives.

Qualifications

• Strong technical skills with cloud networking fundamentals and AI/ML concepts.
• Strong analytical skills to leverage data for engineering decisions.
• Prior TPM experience (min 4 years) driving end-to-end programs across orgs.
• Experience leading cloud platform engineering cross-functional projects; AI/ML infra programs a plus.
• Experience driving operations across teams; dashboard creation a plus.
• Familiarity with JIRA, BigQuery, and Google Apps Script.
• Excellent communication and leadership with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Agile environment experience with JIRA reporting and sprint planning.

Responsibilities

• Drive cross-cutting initiatives with stakeholders across Product, Security, and Engineering leadership.
• Ensure on-time delivery through proactive risk management and clear status updates.
• Identify and resolve roadblocks affecting projects.
• Make technical decisions to keep projects on track.
• Collaborate with Engineering, Product, and Security to drive projects on a predictable schedule.
• Run cross-functional meetings and steer decision-making on schedules and deliveries.
• Engage with engineering and product stakeholders to align priorities and manage dependencies.

Skills

Cloud networking

AI/ML concepts

Data analytics

TPM experience

Cloud platform engineering

AI/ML platforms

Operations dashboards

JIRA

BigQuery

Google Apps Script

Strong communication

Agile / Scrum

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Master's Degree

Tools

JIRA

BigQuery

Google Apps Script

Job description

Introduction

At IBM Software, we transform client challenges into solutions. Building the world’s leading AI-powered, cloud-native products that shape the future of business and society. Our legacy of innovation creates endless opportunities for IBMers to learn, grow, and make an impact on a global scale. Working in Software means joining a team fueled by curiosity and collaboration. You’ll work with diverse technologies, partners, and industries to design, develop, and deliver solutions that power digital transformation. With a culture that values innovation, growth, and continuous learning, IBM Software places you at the heart of IBM’s product and technology landscape. Here, you’ll have the tools and opportunities to advance your career while creating software that changes the world.

Introduction

At IBM Software, we transform client challenges into solutions. Building the world’s leading AI-powered, cloud-native products that shape the future of business and society. Our legacy of innovation creates endless opportunities for IBMers to learn, grow, and make an impact on a global scale. Working in Software means joining a team fueled by curiosity and collaboration. You’ll work with diverse technologies, partners, and industries to design, develop, and deliver solutions that power digital transformation. With a culture that values innovation, growth, and continuous learning, IBM Software places you at the heart of IBM’s product and technology landscape. Here, you’ll have the tools and opportunities to advance your career while creating software that changes the world.

Your Role And Responsibilities

As a Senior Technical Program Manager (TPM), your day-to-day involves juggling multiple AI initiatives across numerous teams, stakeholder functions (Product, Security, Engineering leadership, etc.), and geographies. While closely monitoring dependencies with other orgs, you will drive planning, prioritization, risk management, stakeholder reporting, operations, and tradeoffs — often at the intersection of fast-moving AI/ML capabilities and Confluent\'s core streaming platform. A cross-org view is particularly strategic here, as you\'ll manage horizontal, multi-quarter programs spanning AI core features and platform reliability/security initiatives.

Driving these initiatives requires prior experience managing cloud projects, having an operational focus, experience with cross-group dependency management, the ability to deep-dive into technical issues and organizational problem-solving. A big focus for the TPM here would be to shield the development teams from chaos and streamline processes for smooth and successful on-schedule delivery of long-ranging programs.

Programs you own may span complex technical projects involving model inference performance and scalability, multi-region DR, streaming agent orchestration, and emerging AI protocol adoption. Hence a strong foundation in cloud fundamentals — and working fluency in AI/ML system concepts is necessary to deep-dive into technical areas and support these programs successfully.

Who You Are

• You are smart, humble, and empathetic.
• You have a strong sense of teamwork and put the team\'s and company\'s interests first.
• You are driven and excited about the challenges of a fast-paced, innovative software startup environment with a mindset of getting stuff done!

Responsibilities

• Work with stakeholders to drive cross-cutting and critical initiatives for the company.
• Ensure we can deliver projects on time, regularly communicating progress and status to key stakeholders.
• Proactively identify and resolve roadblocks/challenges affecting projects.
• Make technical decisions to keep projects running smoothly.
• Work with Engineering, Product, and Security leadership to streamline and drive projects on a predictable schedule.
• Run cross-functional meetings and drive decision-making around schedule adjustments, bug triage, and internal and external partner/customer delivery.
• Take ownership of engaging with various engineering and product stakeholders to drive E2E execution, including understanding potential risks and alignment models for competing priorities.
• Help the Streaming AI team understand the priorities of other dependent teams, both upstream and downstream, to unblock their roadmap needs.

Preferred Education

Master\'s Degree

Required Technical And Professional Expertise

• Strong technical skills, especially knowledge of cloud networking fundamentals; working familiarity with AI/ML system concepts is a strong plus
• Strong analytical skills. Ability to use data to glean insights and trends and help engineering make better decisions.
• Prior TPM experience, a minimum of 4 years, in driving end-to-end lifecycle of complex and massive projects across organizations.
• Experience driving cloud platform engineering cross-functional projects; experience with AI/ML platform or infrastructure programs is a big plus.
• Experience driving operations across teams, creating dashboards is also a big plus.
• Experience with JIRA, BigQuery, Google App Scripts
• Strong communication, interpersonal and leadership skills to work with engineering and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience in highly agile environments applying JIRA reporting and sprint planning is a big plus.
• Bachelor\'s degree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Technical And Professional Experience

• Leading-Edge Technologies: Experience with designing, developing, and delivering software solutions using leading-edge technologies, including back-end and front-end development, and DevOps engineering.
• Agile Collaboration: Experience working in an Agile environment, collaborating with stakeholders to understand requirements and deliver high-quality software solutions.
• Automated CI/CD Pipelines: Experience contributing to automated CI/CD pipelines, ensuring seamless integration and delivery of software solutions.