Principal Technical Program Manager

Zillow

5d • $169,300 - $284,700 • Remote

About The Position

This is a Principal Technical Program Manager (P5) role within the Customer Fulfillment Engineering group. We hire Principal TPMs on an ongoing basis as we grow, and when you apply, you will be considered for current and future Principal TPM opportunities supporting Follow Up Boss and our broader fulfillment and partner platforms. As a Principal TPM, you will lead large, cross-organizational programs that sit at the heart of Zillow’s agent and team experiences. You’ll drive initiatives that: · Modernize and scale our CRM, communications, and workflow platforms · Improve reliability, performance, and quality across critical systems · Introduce AI-powered capabilities that help agents prioritize the right work and serve their clients more effectively · Align product, platform, and operational work into coherent, outcomes-driven roadmaps You’ll operate at both strategy and execution levels. You’ll clarify goals, translate product vision into technical plans, align stakeholders, and ensure programs land with measurable impact for our customers and business. You will get to

Requirements

• 8+ years of Technical Program Management experience (or equivalent) leading large, cross-functional software initiatives in mid-size or large organizations, with a proven track record delivering complex, multi-team programs with meaningful customer and business impact.
• 4+ years of hands-on experience building or closely partnering on software systems (for example, web/mobile applications, distributed services, or data/messaging platforms), and you are comfortable discussing architecture, tradeoffs, and failure modes with engineers.
• Experience working with product and design partners on customer-facing experiences, preferably in B2B SaaS, CRM, communications, or workflow/automation domains, and you know how to balance new feature delivery with platform, quality, and operational investments.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; you distill complexity into crisp narratives tailored to engineers, cross-functional peers, and executive stakeholders, and you influence without direct authority to align diverse stakeholders and drive accountability.
• Deep command of program management fundamentals, including planning, estimation, risk management, dependency mapping, change management, and postmortems, and you are comfortable using data and metrics (such as reliability, latency, throughput, and funnel performance) to steer programs and improve how teams operate.
• You thrive in ambiguity and change, enjoy working in evolving problem spaces with incomplete information, and naturally move teams from confusion to clarity, building momentum without waiting for perfect conditions.

Nice To Haves

• experience in real estate, CRM, martech/adtech, or communications platforms
• background working with AI/ML-powered products or using AI to improve developer and operator productivity
• prior experience with high-scale systems that handle large volumes of messages, events, or third-party integrations

Responsibilities

• Lead complex, cross-org, multi-quarter programs that span multiple product, platform, and data teams within Customer Fulfillment Engineering and partner orgs, owning delivery from discovery through post-launch and managing scope, risks, and dependencies.
• Create clarity from ambiguity by turning loosely defined problems into clear program charters, roadmaps, and success metrics, bringing structure to fast-moving, evolving environments.
• Bridge product and engineering by translating product goals into technical requirements and sequencing, partnering closely with Engineering Managers, Staff/Principal Engineers, and Product leaders to shape strategy and make smart tradeoffs.
• Drive operational excellence by establishing regular operating rhythms (for example, cadences, dashboards, and reviews) and defining and tracking KPIs around reliability, throughput, quality, and customer impact for Customer Fulfillment programs.
• Champion AI and platform strategy by partnering with engineering and product leaders to integrate AI, shared platforms, and reusable services into program plans where they create durable leverage.
• Influence senior leaders by communicating clearly with Directors, VPs, and cross-functional partners; framing options and recommendations; driving alignment; and securing decisions that unblock progress.
• Improve how we work by evolving lightweight, scalable ways-of-working across Customer Fulfillment Engineering (planning, intake, prioritization, execution, and retros), balancing consistency with team autonomy.
• Mentor and lead by example as a senior leader within the TPM community at Zillow, mentoring other TPMs and helping raise the bar on program management craft across the org.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed