Technical Program Manager

Cornerstone OnDemand is looking for a Technical Program Manager who will drive the planning, execution, and delivery of complex, cross-functional technical programs. You will work at the intersection of engineering, product, and business teams to ensure large-scale initiatives are delivered with clarity, predictability, and impact. This role requires a strong technical foundation combined with exceptional program management skills to orchestrate multiple workstreams and

stakeholders toward shared outcomes.

In this role, you will

Program Planning & Execution

- Own end-to-end program management for large-scale, cross-functional technical initiatives spanning multiple engineering teams, products, and business units.

- Define program scope, milestones, deliverables, success criteria, and resource requirements in collaboration with engineering and product leadership.

- Build and maintain detailed program plans, roadmaps, and schedules with clear dependencies, critical paths, and risk mitigation strategies.

- Drive program execution through structured governance standups, status reviews, steering committee meetings, and escalation workflows.

- Track and report program health, progress, risks, and blockers to senior leadership and stakeholders through dashboards and executive summaries.

- Manage program-level trade-offs across scope, timeline, quality, and resources making recommendations grounded in data and technical context.

- Conduct retrospectives and post-mortems to capture lessons learned and drive continuous improvement in delivery processes.

- Identify process bottlenecks and inefficiencies across teams and implement improvements to accelerate delivery cycles.

Technical Leadership & Cross-Functional Alignment

- Partner with engineering leaders and architects to understand system designs, technical dependencies, and integration points across programs.

- Facilitate architecture and design reviews to ensure alignment across teams and identify cross-cutting concerns early.

- Coordinate platform migrations, infrastructure upgrades, API versioning, and other technical initiatives that span multiple teams.

- Partner with DevOps and SRE teams to ensure release readiness, deployment coordination, and operational handoffs for program deliverables.

- Define and drive Agile-at-scale practices (SAFe, Scrum of Scrums, or similar) across engineering teams to improve delivery predictability and velocity.

- Facilitate alignment between product roadmaps, engineering capacity, and business priorities to ensure realistic commitments.

Stakeholder Communication & Risk Management

- Serve as the central point of communication for program status, decisions, and escalations across engineering, product, design, QA, and business teams.

- Translate complex technical concepts and program details into clear, concise updates for executive leadership and non-technical stakeholders.

- Manage stakeholder expectations proactively surfacing trade-offs, timeline impacts, and scope changes early with data-backed recommendations.

- Build and maintain a risk management framework proactively identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks before they become blockers.

- Manage cross-team dependency tracking, capacity planning, and sprint/release coordination.

- Build strong relationships across the organization to enable effective collaboration and influence without authority.

You've Got What It Takes If You Have

Requirements

- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

- 3+ years of experience in technical program management, engineering project management, or a related role within software product organizations.

- 2+ years of hands-on software engineering or technical lead experience (prior to or alongside program management).

- Proven track record of successfully delivering large-scale, cross-functional technical programs on time and within scope.

Technical Expertise

- Strong understanding of software development lifecycle, system architecture, distributed systems, and cloud platforms (Azure preferred).

- Familiarity with microservices architecture, API design, CI/CD pipelines, and modern DevOps practices.

- Ability to read and understand code, technical design documents, and architecture diagrams at a level sufficient to assess risks and dependencies.

- Experience with Agile/Scrum methodologies and scaling frameworks.

- Proficiency with program management and collaboration tools such as Jira, Azure DevOps, Confluence, Smartsheet, or MS Project.

Communication & Leadership

- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to tailor messaging for technical and executive audiences.

- Strong facilitation skills able to lead productive meetings, drive decisions, and resolve conflicts constructively.

- Exceptional organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple complex programs simultaneously.

- Proven ability to build trust and influence across engineering, product, and business functions.

- Proactive and self-driven with a strong sense of ownership over program outcomes.