Senior Technical Program Manager

WatchGuard embraces a Flexible Work Philosophy. Most of our employees can choose to work from the office, at home, or any combination of the two. We’ve built a global workforce of outstanding team members and a flexible culture built on trust, collaboration, and belonging.
About the PositionThe Senior Technical Program Manager (TPM) will play a key role in delivering software and operations projects, strategic initiatives, and critical solutions for internal and external customers. The right candidate must have a strong background in technical program management and a proven track record of delivering complex technology projects using Agile principles. This is a great opportunity for someone who has broad technical knowledge, can see applications and systems from a product perspective, and make sound business decisions. The successful candidate will build strong cross-functional partnerships with Product Management, Engineering, QA, Operations, Technical Support, and Product Marketing to enable successful delivery of products across the entire enterprise. This role reports directly to the Vice President of Product Delivery Operations and is part of a supportive, experienced team. If you are looking for a challenge and you’re enthusiastic, self-motivated, and want to grow your program management career, WatchGuard has the perfect role for you. A day in the life…   This role allows you to work from your home office or remote location.  With this in mind, you are encouraged to strike the right work/life balance and manage your day accordingly.  We are a worldwide company and as a result there may be meetings early or late in your day.  Likewise, your opportunity to communicate to key individuals may also have to occur during those times.  You will likely have e-mail from your world-wide teammates when you start your day.  You tackle your e-mail and participate in meetings using Microsoft Teams or Zoom when scheduled.  As a TPM, you will likely be hosting or leading some of these meetings.  There should be open time on your calendar to bring kids to/from school, get some exercise, or whatever may be on your daily agenda.  You will likely arrange calls with key members of your team to understand their status, challenges, and risks.  You will be updating the status of your programs primarily using Confluence and Jira, but also in Excel or PowerPoint when appropriate.  You need to make sure you find time for midday breaks according to your daily schedule.  You will arrange time for product learning either through hands-on training or internal websites, videos, and documentation.  At the end of the day, you reflect on the progress made as well as new risks and challenges identified; but you recognize the importance of your engagement in moving your programs towards its goals.

Position Responsibilities

• Drive successful delivery of technical projects/initiatives from project initiation to completion
• Work closely with project team members on their commitments, milestones, resources allocations, and deliverables during projects/initiatives
• Understand how our internal partner/stakeholder teams operate in order to manage priorities and deliveries of high-quality solutions in alignment with the product vision
• Effectively communicate objectives, project milestones, status, and dependencies in a timely manner to team members, stakeholders and management
• Identify roadblocks, issues and anticipate risks that may inhibit overall project progress and/or release success and report/escalate them to the appropriate stakeholder(s)
• Identify means to enhance processes to improve the effectiveness of the Program Management Office and overall product development
• Contribute to a positive team environment where equity and inclusion are highly valued

Skills and Qualifications

• Solutions oriented with a keen ability to mitigate risks in driving cross-functional teams to simply get stuff done.
• Data-driven, relying on it to make decisions; but also capable of moving forward without it.  Ability to establish Key Performance Indicators based on available metrics.
• Experience in managing cross-functional efforts across different disciplines and levels of management
• Experience with Agile software development principles and methodologies as well as Agile Development tools such as JIRA and Confluence is preferred
• Ability to communicate technical concepts, plans, and project status to all levels within the enterprise and to work with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• High analytical and problem-solving skills; able to document specifications, organize material, analyze a wide variety of facts and data to make appropriate recommendations
• Ability to work from a home or remote office location

Experience

• Proven multi-years of experience leading software development