Principal, Technical Program Management (Research & Development)

Twilio

3d • Remote

About The Position

Twilio is the world’s leading customer engagement platform empowering developers to build modern communication applications and experiences designed to be trusted, simple and smart. Twilio is looking for a Principal, Technical Program Management to help direct a portfolio of strategic, complex, and multidisciplinary programs that significantly accelerate R&D's business impact. You'll set program strategy and lead program teams to successfully deliver business, operational, and technical improvements across Engineering & Product organizations.
As a trusted strategic advisor, you will play a critical role in driving alignment, setting priorities, and delivering high-impact programs that advance strategic initiatives. The Principal, Technical Program Management in R&D is highly visible and requires a strong balance of strategic insight, execution excellence, and cross-functional leadership. You will navigate seamlessly between big-picture planning and hands-on delivery to ensure key initiatives move forward in a dynamic, scaled agile environment. You'll also be expected to adapt your program portfolio proactively in response to evolving business needs and organizational complexity. Your expertise in your domain areas is regarded as expert level and authoritative, both within R&D and across the company.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience managing technical projects in the software engineering domain.
• Proven Program Leadership: Demonstrated success in delivering large-scale technical programs across multiple organizations with multi-quarter timelines and intricate dependencies.
• Technical Fluency: Ability to engage deeply in architecture and integration discussions. You can identify hidden technical risks, assess complexity, and drive rigorous operational readiness planning.
• Influence without Authority: Proven ability to build relationships across organizational boundaries and drive alignment among senior stakeholders with competing priorities.
• Communication Excellence: Ability to craft executive-ready narratives that crisp up complex tradeoffs into clear, actionable recommendations for leadership.
• Resilience in Ambiguity: Comfort with shifting specifications or standards; you create the conditions for engineering teams to remain productive and focused during periods of high ambiguity.
• Execution Rigor: A default-to-action mindset with the ability to build and enforce the mechanisms (dashboards, cadences, checklists) required to maintain high-velocity execution.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, a related field or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s in computer science or engineering or a related field.
• 5+ years of technical program management at hyperscaler or Fortune 100 cloud software/infrastructure companies.
• Experience in telephony, email, messaging, social media, or other electronic communications.

Responsibilities

• Lead high-impact, cross-org technical programs: Direct the execution of programs spanning multiple products and platforms characterized by significant technical complexity and executive visibility. You are the primary driver for aligning engineering teams toward a unified delivery goal.
• Define and drive the execution strategy: Establish the sequencing, governance models, and integration approaches for large-scale initiatives. You move beyond a project plan to define the launch readiness criteria and operational success metrics that ensure a high-quality release.
• Align cross-org delivery and dependencies: Manage the execution roadmap across Product and Engineering teams. You proactively surface technical tradeoffs, resourcing gaps, and critical decision points, providing data-backed recommendations to leadership.
• Partner on technical approach and risk: Collaborate deeply with senior engineers and architects to validate integration patterns and operational risks. You ensure that execution plans reflect real-world system constraints, failure modes, and security requirements.
• Establish ownership and accountability: Implement clear ownership models (such as RACI or DRI) across organizations. You navigate conflicting priorities between teams to maintain momentum and ensure clear lines of responsibility.
• Anticipate platform-wide impacts: Ensure that critical non-functional requirements—such as observability, supportability, billing implications, and GTM readiness—are integrated into the program lifecycle and validated before launch.
• Build durable program mechanisms: Create and refine operating cadences, reporting standards, and readiness dashboards. You contribute to the improvement of Twilio’s R&D execution engine by developing templates and playbooks that can be reused across the organization.

Benefits

• Working at Twilio offers many benefits, including competitive pay, generous time off, ample parental and wellness leave, healthcare, a retirement savings program, and much more. Offerings vary by location.
• This role may be eligible to participate in Twilio’s equity plan and corporate bonus plan. All roles are generally eligible for the following benefits: health care insurance, 401(k) retirement account, paid sick time, paid personal time off, paid parental leave.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal