Senior Director, Technical Program Management

Oracle•Santa Clara, CA

1d•$169,800 - $355,400

About The Position

The Senior Director, Technical Program Management partners with principal engineers and leaders in product, finance, and business. This role owns program strategy from definition through execution and realization of business benefits, with accountability for decisions and outcomes that shape the organization's long-term direction. The role sets multi-year program direction, identifies systemic constraints and opportunities, establishes strategy and roadmaps, and recommends starting, stopping, or re-sequencing initiatives as priorities change. It shapes technical strategy with engineering leaders by surfacing scaling limits, dependencies, and failure modes, influencing architectural choices, and resolving consequential tradeoffs. The position connects engineering investments to measurable business results, directs execution across interdependent programs and organizations, and drives executive alignment and decisions without relying on direct authority. It also leads corrective programs for systemic risks, establishes durable planning and review mechanisms, mentors senior technical program managers, and contributes to hiring standards and practices across the TPM community.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in technical program management, technical product management, or engineering, including sustained ownership of strategic programs spanning multiple organizations.
10+ years of experience with people leadership in technical program management.
A record of independently defining and delivering programs where the problem, technical approach, or business strategy was initially unclear, including shaping multi-year roadmaps and achieving material customer or business outcomes.
Deep understanding of distributed systems and production cloud architectures, with expertise in areas such as storage, databases, compute, networking, or reliability.
Ability to reason through interfaces, performance limits, failure modes, and architectural tradeoffs with senior technical leaders.
Demonstrated influence with VPs and SVPs, including resolving conflicting objectives, securing investment or engineering capacity, and driving difficult cross-organizational decisions.
Strong business and analytical judgment, including use of technical and financial evidence to evaluate alternatives, prioritize investments, and measure adoption, service performance, or cost improvements after delivery.
Exceptional written communication and executive judgment, including clear strategy documents and recommendations.
Evidence of developing senior TPMs and establishing operating practices adopted beyond the immediate program.
Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

Experience leading major cloud platform transitions, regional expansion, fleet efficiency, or service reliability programs with dependencies across infrastructure and software organizations.
Prior software engineering, systems architecture, or site reliability engineering experience, including direct involvement in design, launch, or operation of large-scale distributed services.
Experience developing capacity or investment models and using analytics, automation, or AI-assisted tools to improve decisions and execution at organizational scale.

Responsibilities

Set multi-year program direction by defining problems and desired outcomes, developing strategy, investment cases, and roadmaps, and recommending which initiatives to start, stop, or re-sequence.
Shape technical strategy in partnership with principal engineers and architects by surfacing scaling limits, dependencies, and failure modes; challenging assumptions with engineering evidence; influencing architectural decisions; and resolving tradeoffs with technical owners.
Quantify customer impact, cost of delay, and expected returns; partner with product and finance to prioritize investments; and verify that programs deliver intended benefits.
Establish integrated delivery strategies for interdependent programs across services and leadership teams; own critical paths, resource and scope decisions, and recovery when assumptions fail; remain accountable through production readiness and adoption.
Align executives by reconciling competing director and VP priorities, negotiating commitments, establishing decision rights, and preparing decision documents that clarify consequences and recommend action.
Identify systemic weaknesses in architecture, capacity planning, ownership, and delivery practices, and lead cross-service corrective programs that address root causes.
Incorporate security, resilience, launch readiness, and operational sustainability into investment and release decisions.
Establish planning, decision, and review practices, trusted forecasts, and outcome metrics; automate manual work; and demonstrate sustained improvements against agreed baselines.
Mentor senior TPMs, strengthen technical judgment and program strategy across the TPM community, contribute to hiring standards, and spread proven practices across organizations.
Stay personally engaged in the highest-risk technical and business decisions.