Your role and responsibilities
As a Staff Technical Program Manager (TPM), you will be a key force multiplier within Confluent's engineering organization. Your primary responsibility is leading the execution of high-priority, "cannot-fail" programs across our engineering organization. This role requires driving crucial cross-functional alignment across Engineering, Product, Finance, and Security teams to ensure predictable delivery of foundational platform programs.
What You Will Do
- Drive Complex Initiatives: Lead end-to-end delivery of large-scale technical programs such as FedRAMP, compliance readiness, and platform-wide architecture shifts that directly impact Confluent's scalability and operational excellence.
- Technical Liaison: Translate high-level business goals into detailed technical requirements and communicate complex architectural trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders, including VP and C-suite audiences.
- Operational Excellence: Establish rigorous program management standards, clear milestones, KPIs, risk mitigation strategies, and regular status reporting to ensure predictable, on-time delivery.
- Strategic Alignment: Partner with Engineering and Product leadership to prioritize roadmaps, resolve cross-team dependencies, and manage resource allocation for business-critical programs.
- Stakeholder Management: Facilitate decision-making across global, distributed teams and manage relationships with key internal and external partners.
Required education
Bachelor's Degree
Preferred education
Master's Degree
Required technical and professional expertise
- Experience: 7+ years of experience in a Technical Program Management role, preferably within cloud-native or large-scale software environments.
- Technical Depth: Strong understanding of distributed systems, cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), and SaaS platform engineering.
- Leadership Style: Alignment with Confluent's values of being Smart, Humble, and Empathetic, with the ability to thrive in fast-paced environments and embody a "Get Stuff Done" mindset.
- Proactive Problem Solving: Results-driven with the ability to navigate ambiguity, identify risks early, and drive resolution across complex dependencies.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Proven ability to work across Engineering, Product, Finance, and Security teams to align priorities and deliver outcomes at scale.
- Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
Preferred technical and professional experience
- Familiarity with the Confluent Platform or Apache Kafka.
- Experience building dashboards and reports using JQL, SQL, BigQuery, or Data Studio.
- Background working with, or within, an SRE, Platform Engineering, or Infrastructure organization.
OTHER RELEVANT JOB DETAILSIBM offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits program. Eligible employees may have access to:
- Healthcare benefits including medical & prescription drug coverage, dental, vision, and mental health & well being
- Financial programs such as 401(k), cash balance pension plan, the IBM Employee Stock Purchase Plan, financial counseling, life insurance, short & long- term disability coverage, and opportunities for performance based salary incentive programs
- Generous paid time off including 12 holidays, minimum 56 hours sick time, 120 hours vacation, 12 weeks parental bonding leave in accordance with IBM Policy, and other Paid Care Leave programs. IBM also offers paid family leave benefits to eligible employees where required by applicable law
- Training and educational resources on our personalized, AI-driven learning platform where IBMers can grow skills and obtain industry-recognized certifications to achieve their career goals
- Diverse and inclusive employee resource groups, giving & volunteer opportunities, and discounts on retail products, services & experiences
We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.
This position was posted on the date cited in the key job details section and is anticipated to remain posted for 21 days from this date or less if not needed to fill the role.
The compensation range and benefits for this position are based on a full-time schedule for a full calendar year. The salary will vary depending on your job-related skills, experience and location. Pay increment and frequency of pay will be in accordance with employment classification and applicable laws. For part time roles, your compensation and benefits will be adjusted to reflect your hours. Benefits may be pro-rated for those who start working during the calendar year.
