Senior Technical Program Manager

CNN is hiring a Senior Technical Program Manager to lead high-impact programs that span product, technology, design, and product operations. This is a deeply technical senior individual-contributor role for someone who can move between architecture, code, product strategy, operating models, and executive decision-making without losing the thread.

The role reports directly to the Senior Director of Technical Program Management and will be trusted with ambiguous, multi-quarter programs that do not fit neatly inside one function. The programs in this portfolio often have no single functional owner, require trade-offs across several organizations, and need sustained influence with Vice Presidents, Directors, principal-level practitioners, and the teams doing the work.

This is not a coordination-only position. The person in this role will define the problem, establish the program strategy, understand the underlying systems, challenge weak assumptions, create alignment, and drive measurable outcomes through delivery, launch, adoption, and iteration.

WHAT YOU WILL OWN

• Lead a portfolio of high-priority, cross-organization technical programs from early problem framing through execution, launch, adoption, and measurable business or customer impact.

• Turn broad goals into clear program strategies, outcome metrics, decision rights, sequencing, governance, and executable plans across multiple teams.

• Build and maintain integrated plans, dependencies, critical paths, decision logs, risk views, and executive-level narratives that make the real state of the work visible.

• Identify the technical, product, organizational, and operational constraints that will determine success; resolve them directly or drive the right leaders to a timely decision.

• Work with senior leaders, including VPs, to clarify priorities, expose trade-offs, remove blockers, and create durable alignment without relying on formal authority.

• Move comfortably between several programs and levels of detail in the same day, while preserving context, commitments, and follow-through.

• Create the minimum effective operating model for each program: enough structure to move quickly and safely, without adding process that does not improve outcomes.

• Develop trusted relationships across Product, Engineering, Design, Product Operations, Architecture, Data, Security, Editorial, Revenue, and other partner organizations as the work requires.

• Raise the quality of program leadership across the organization by modeling strong judgment, direct communication, technical curiosity, and disciplined execution.
  

TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP EXPECTATIONS

This role is not a software-engineering position, but it is intentionally more technical than a traditional program-management role. The successful candidate must be able to engage engineers and architects as a credible peer and independently investigate technical questions.

• Read, write, review, and reason about code. Use (ai) code when it is the fastest way to validate an assumption, automate work, inspect data, reproduce a problem, or demonstrate a solution.

• Understand modern software-delivery practices, including source control, pull requests, testing, CI/CD, observability, incident response, release strategies, and production operations.

• Evaluate system architecture, service boundaries, API contracts, event flows, data models, cloud infrastructure, security constraints, reliability concerns, and integration risks well enough to shape the program plan.

• Lead technical discovery with engineers and architects, translate findings into decisions and sequencing, and recognize when a proposed plan is technically incomplete or unrealistic.

• Use data and technical evidence to distinguish symptoms from root causes and to challenge estimates, assumptions, or dependencies constructively.

• Communicate technical choices and consequences in language that product, design, operations, and executive stakeholders can act on.
  

PRODUCT, DESIGN, AND OPERATING JUDGMENT

• Frame the customer, user, editorial, operational, or business problem before converging on a solution; connect program work to a clear value hypothesis.

• Partner closely with Product and Design to define intended outcomes, success measures, experience principles, scope boundaries, and the smallest credible path to learning or value.

• Pressure-test prioritization using customer impact, strategic fit, technical leverage, cost, risk, reversibility, and opportunity cost.

• Translate product strategy into a delivery approach that includes discovery, design, engineering, operational readiness, launch, measurement, and follow-up—not just a milestone schedule.

• Work with Product Operations to improve planning, decision-making, portfolio visibility, adoption, feedback loops, and repeatable ways of working across teams.

• Recognize when a program needs a product decision, a technical decision, an operating-model change, or an executive trade-off, and drive the correct conversation.
  

EXECUTIVE INFLUENCE AND PROGRAM LEADERSHIP

• Present complex situations to senior leaders with clarity: what changed, why it matters, what choices exist, what you recommend, and what decision is needed.

• Escalate early and with options. Avoid status-only escalation and make it easy for leaders to take the next action.

• Build alignment across leaders who may have different goals, incentives, vocabulary, or operating rhythms; surface disagreement rather than allowing false consensus.

• Make sound decisions independently within the role's mandate and know when additional input or explicit executive sponsorship is required.

• Stay effective under ambiguity, organizational change, incomplete information, and shifting priorities while maintaining a high bar for quality and accountability.

• Create an environment in which teams can raise risks, make decisions, and move quickly without losing transparency or ownership.
  

WHAT YOU WILL BRING

Required qualifications

• At least 5 years of direct experience leading complex technical programs, with demonstrated principal- or senior-level scope in a matrixed organization.

• A strong software-engineering foundation or equivalent hands-on technical background, including the ability to complete a practical coding assessment.

• Demonstrated ability to understand architecture and implementation details, ask precise technical questions, and convert technical realities into an effective program strategy.

• Strong product judgment, including problem framing, customer or user thinking, prioritization, metrics, experimentation, and trade-off analysis.

• A record of driving cross-functional outcomes across Product, Engineering, Design, and Operations from ambiguity through launch and adoption.

• Experience influencing Directors, VPs, and other senior leaders through clear reasoning, evidence, strong recommendations, and persistent follow-through.

• Exceptional independence, ownership, context switching, and organizational awareness; able to enter a new domain quickly and determine what matters.

• Excellent written and verbal communication, including executive updates, decision documents, program narratives, and direct facilitation of difficult conversations.

• A practical approach to process: rigorous where risk and complexity demand it, lightweight where speed and learning matter more.
  

Preferred qualifications

• Previous experience as a software engineer, engineering lead, architect, technical product manager, or similarly technical role.

• Experience with large-scale consumer digital products, media or publishing systems, subscriptions, advertising, data platforms, AI-enabled products, or platform modernization.

• Experience leading programs that require changes to both technology and the way teams plan, make decisions, or operate.

• Experience working across multiple time zones, business units, vendors, or shared-platform organizations.

• Comfort using modern development, analytics, planning, and collaboration tools to investigate work directly rather than relying only on reported status.
  

WHAT STRONG PERFORMANCE LOOKS LIKE

First 90 days — Context and trust: Build a clear map of the portfolio, systems, stakeholders, constraints, and unresolved decisions. Establish credibility with technical and product leaders and create momentum on the highest-value issues.

By 6 months — Independent program leadership: Run multiple high-stakes programs with reliable visibility, strong technical and product framing, timely decisions, and fewer avoidable surprises. Senior leaders should view the role as a force multiplier, not an additional reporting layer.

By 12 months — Durable outcomes: Deliver measurable program results, improve the organization's ability to execute across boundaries, and leave behind reusable decision, planning, and operating patterns that make future work faster and clearer.

CANDIDATE ASSESSMENT

The interview process will evaluate the complete shape of the role rather than program-management mechanics alone. Candidates should expect:

• A practical coding assessment focused on problem solving, code comprehension, implementation quality, debugging, automation, data handling, or API/system interaction. It is not intended to be a trick-algorithm exercise, but candidates must demonstrate genuine hands-on ability.

• A product-thinking component that evaluates problem framing, customer or user value, prioritization, success metrics, sequencing, trade-offs, and the ability to connect technical work to product outcomes.

• A technical program deep dive covering architecture, dependencies, delivery strategy, risk, decision-making, and how the candidate personally changed the outcome.

• A leadership and influence discussion focused on independence, ambiguity, context switching, executive communication, conflict, and driving action across organizational boundaries.