Technical Program Manager

Kangaroo; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Kangaroo in San Francisco seeks a technically strong TPM to own and develop core product offerings, delivering high quality storytelling experiences for fans of our IP partners.

You will lead cross‑functional teams, establish efficient best practices, manage end‑to‑end delivery, assess risks, and mentor the team to build scalable, on‑time solutions. This role blends strategy with hands‑on execution across web, UI, and ML stacks.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent combination of technical education and work experience.
• Experience operating autonomously across multiple teams, demonstrated critical thinking and thought leadership.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and ability to frame discussions with senior leadership.
• Deep hands‑on technical expertise and track record of shipping software on time.

Responsibilities

• Oversee the overall development life cycle of the product and manage complex projects with significant bottom line impact.
• Work with founders to develop a strategy and roadmap to provide compelling capabilities and enable business goals.
• Break down complex business problems into solvable pieces that can be shipped iteratively.
• Develop and manage end‑to‑end project plans and ensure on‑time delivery.
• Balance business needs with technical constraints by building deep subject matter expertise.
• Identify inefficiencies and drive better, more efficient workflows across teams.
• Interface with engineering and business owners to define requirements and scope.
• Collaborate with engineers to develop the best technical design for new product development.
• Instill best practices for software development and documentation.

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Job description

The Opportunity

A TPM at Kangaroo will be the force of nature that enables our team to deliver high quality storytelling experiences to fans of our IP partners. We are looking for a technically strong project management leader to own and develop the core product offerings alongside our team. Along the way, you will have a direct impact on how to best build for our end users.

We are young and growing rapidly, and as a TPM, you will be able to identify novel solutions to unknown problems, and help establish efficient best practices for the entire team.

In this role you will work closely with the software development and design teams to deliver high quality, scalable products. You will collaborate with the teams to deliver the best product with the most efficient use of resources and technologies. You will work with all the stakeholders to assign responsibilities, identify appropriate resources needed, and develop schedules to ensure timely completion of projects by meeting project milestones. You will also assess risks, anticipate bottlenecks, provide escalation management, make tradeoffs, balance the business needs versus technical constraints and encourage risk taking behavior to maximize business benefit. Successful candidates will have a technical background, be detail driven and have excellent problem solving abilities. You should not only be passionate about delivering extensible, on-time solutions, but should also be obsessed with contributing to the development of high-performance teams through rigorous goal-setting, disciplined attention to performance metrics, continuous process improvement, and mentorship.

Our team works with diverse technology stacks including web development, UI frameworks, and machine learning.

Responsibilities

• Oversee the overall development life cycle of the product and manage complex projects with significant bottom line impact
• Work with the founders in developing a strategy and roadmap to provide compelling capabilities for the product and enable the company's business goals
• Identify and break down complex business problems into solvable pieces that can be shipped iteratively
• Develop and manage end-to‑end project plans and ensure on‑time delivery
• Balance the business needs with technical constraints by building deep subject matter expertise
• Proactively identify inefficiencies that are holding the team back, and drive better, more efficient workflows
• Interface with engineering and business owners for defining requirements and scope
• Work closely with engineers to develop the best technical design and approach for new product development
• Instill best practices for software development and documentation, assure designs meet requirements, and deliver high‑quality work on tight schedules
• Project management - prioritization , planning of projects and features, stakeholder management and tracking of external commitments
• Report product development progress to founders and ensure that products are delivered on time
• Oversee product deployment and integration
• Diagnose and resolve technical issues

What is needed for the role

Minimum qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent combination of technical education and work experience
• Knowledge of user needs, gathering requirements, and defining scope
• Experience operating autonomously across multiple teams, demonstrated critical thinking, and thought leadership
• Communication experience representing work to senior leadership and framing discussions to gain valuable feedback and experience working with technical management teams to develop systems, solutions, and products
• Organizational, coordination and multi-tasking experience
• Strong business and technical vision
• Ability to handle multiple competing priorities in a fast‑paced environment
• A deep understanding of software development in a team, and a track record of shipping software on time
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Deep hands‑on technical expertise

Nice to haves

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or related technical discipline
• Software Development experience and experience in building and leading strong engineering teams
• Software development experience building web services and highly scalable applications
• Solid software development background including design patterns, data structures, test driven development
• Exceptional customer relationship skills including the ability to discofver the true requirements underlying feature requests, recommend alternative technical and business approaches, and lead engineering efforts to meet aggressive timelines with optimal solutions