Technical Program Manager – Payments & Financial Services Technology
Location: Austin TX – Hybrid
Job Type: Contract
Duration: 6 Months, Extendable
Experience: 8+ Years
Pay Range - $60-$65/hr USD
<>Job Summary
We are seeking an experienced Technical Program Manager (TPM) to join a high-performing Technical Program Management organization supporting large-scale Payments & Financial Services technology initiatives.
The ideal candidate will have a strong software/technical background and proven experience leading complex, cross-functional technology programs across Engineering, Product, Business, Design, Analytics, Marketing, and Operations.
This role will orchestrate strategic, multi-domain initiatives supporting payments, seller payouts, financial services, monetization, merchant services, and other high-impact technology platforms serving millions of customers across global markets.
The successful candidate will be comfortable operating in a highly matrixed environment, managing ambiguity, driving executive-level communication, and influencing teams without direct authority.
Key Responsibilities
Technical Program Leadership
Lead complex, multi-team technical programs from strategy and planning through launch and post-production.
Translate business objectives into program plans, milestones, dependencies, roadmaps, and measurable outcomes.
Manage multiple interconnected workstreams across Engineering, Product, Operations, Business, and other functions.
Establish program governance, operating rhythms, decision forums, and escalation mechanisms.
Drive annual and quarterly planning, prioritization, intake governance, capacity planning, and roadmap development.
Planning & Execution
Develop integrated roadmaps, delivery plans, critical paths, milestones, and release schedules.
Identify cross-team dependencies, resource constraints, sequencing conflicts, and delivery risks.
Drive execution against scope, schedule, quality, budget, and business objectives.
Maintain clear accountability for deliverables, owners, dates, decisions, and dependencies.
Lead launch readiness, go-live coordination, ramp plans, and post-launch monitoring.
Facilitate trade-off discussions and secure commitments from dependency owners.
Technical Acumen
Partner closely with engineers, architects, and technical leads to understand system architecture, APIs, data flows, cloud infrastructure, and platform dependencies.
Evaluate technical trade-offs, integration risks, scalability concerns, and implementation constraints.
Understand the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Agile/Scrum/Kanban, DevOps, CI/CD, testing, release management, and production-readiness processes.
Translate complex technical concepts and trade-offs into clear business and executive-level communication.
Risk & Issue Management
Proactively identify technical, operational, organizational, and business risks.
Develop mitigation plans, contingency strategies, and escalation criteria.
Identify and resolve blockers across teams with competing priorities.
Conduct root-cause analysis and use program metrics to identify potential delivery risks before milestones are impacted.
Stakeholder & Executive Management
Drive alignment across Engineering, Product, Design, Operations, Analytics, Marketing, and Business teams.
Lead through influence, negotiation, and effective information management rather than formal authority.
Facilitate prioritization, scope, resource, and technical trade-off discussions.
Prepare executive-ready status reports, dashboards, risk registers, decision documents, and presentations.
Present program health, blockers, recommendations, and trade-offs to senior leadership and steering committees.
Maintain transparency and accountability across global, matrixed organizations.
Data, Metrics & Reporting
Define program success metrics, operational KPIs, delivery indicators, and program-health measures.
Analyze program and product metrics to identify trends, systemic risks, and areas for improvement.
Track schedule variance, defects, resource capacity, dependencies, and launch readiness.
Build dashboards and reporting mechanisms that provide actionable visibility to stakeholders and executives.
Experience with Tableau, Looker, or Power BI is a plus.
AI & Generative AI
Purposefully leverage AI and Generative AI technologies to improve program-management efficiency and automate manual processes.
Use AI tools to accelerate program planning, documentation synthesis, reporting, requirements analysis, and execution.
Establish repeatable AI-enabled workflows rather than treating AI as an experimental technology.
Define future ways of working and mentor TPMs/PMOs on effective AI adoption.
Lead retrospectives and codify best practices, playbooks, and operating procedures to drive continuous improvement.
Required Qualifications
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
8+ years of experience working with Program Management, Software Development, Technical, Operations, Product, Sales, or Marketing organizations.
Proven experience leading large-scale, cross-functional technology programs from conception through successful delivery.
Strong software/technical background with the ability to communicate effectively with Engineering and Architecture teams.
Strong understanding of system architecture, APIs, data flows, cloud platforms, integrations, and software development practices.
Experience managing multiple complex workstreams and cross-functional dependencies.
Strong understanding of Agile, Scrum, Kanban, DevOps, CI/CD, testing, and release management.
Demonstrated ability to operate independently in ambiguous and rapidly changing environments.
Strong stakeholder-management, negotiation, influence, and conflict-resolution skills.
Excellent written, verbal, presentation, and executive communication skills.
Experience presenting to senior leadership, steering committees, VP-level, or C-suite audiences.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience in Payments, Financial Services, FinTech, eCommerce, Marketplace, Banking, or related technology environments.
Experience working with globally distributed engineering organizations.
Experience with large-scale payment platforms, seller payments/payouts, financial products, merchant services, monetization, or financial technology.
Experience with Jira, Confluence, Airtable, Smartsheet, or similar program-management tools.
Strong proficiency with Excel or Google Sheets for reporting and capacity planning.
Experience with Tableau, Power BI, Looker, or similar analytics platforms.
Experience developing program dashboards, executive reporting, governance frameworks, and operating models.
What We’re Looking For
The ideal candidate is a technical TPM with a software-engineering background, not simply a traditional project manager.
We are looking for someone who can:
Understand technical architecture and engineering challenges.
Drive complex programs involving multiple engineering teams.
Translate business objectives into executable technology roadmaps.
Identify dependencies and delivery risks early.
Influence senior stakeholders without direct authority.
Communicate effectively with engineers and executives.
Use data to drive decisions.
Leverage AI/GenAI as part of their regular TPM workflow.
Bring structure and clarity to ambiguous, high-impact initiatives.
Never miss an opportunity! Create an alert based on the job you applied for.
