Technical Program Manager - Software

Fellow•San Francisco, CA

1d•Onsite

About The Position

Fellow is seeking a Software Technical Program Manager to serve as the operational backbone of their software organization. This role will orchestrate the delivery of firmware, mobile, and cloud releases across their portfolio of connected coffee products, ensuring reliability, timeliness, and thorough validation of all customer-facing updates. The mission is to transform complex, cross-disciplinary engineering efforts into predictable and repeatable execution, acting as a key figure in identifying and resolving issues to ensure seamless integration between firmware, mobile, and cloud components. This position is based in San Francisco, CA, requiring regular in-office presence.

Requirements

6+ years of experience in technical program management, release management, or engineering program leadership, ideally in connected hardware, IoT, or consumer electronics.
Hands-on experience coordinating releases that involve embedded firmware, mobile apps, and cloud services—where all three need to ship in lockstep.
Strong technical fluency: ability to read code, understand system architecture, and participate in technical discussions with embedded and cloud engineers.
Proficiency with modern engineering tools: GitHub (branching strategies, PR workflows, Actions), Linear (or Jira/similar), and CI/CD pipelines.
Track record of establishing release processes, QA gates, and delivery metrics in fast-moving engineering organizations.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills; ability to run a room of senior engineers and produce crisp status updates for leadership.
Calm under pressure.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with C/C++, FreeRTOS, ESP32/STM32, or similar embedded environments.
Experience with OTA update systems, fleet management, and staged rollouts (AWS IoT experience strongly preferred).
Experience with hardware NPI cycles, FCC/CE certification timelines, or consumer electronics launches.

Responsibilities

Own the Release Process: Plan, coordinate, and execute firmware, mobile, and cloud releases across multiple product lines. Run release readiness reviews, manage release branches, coordinate staged OTA rollouts through AWS IoT, and own go/no-go decisions with product and engineering leads.
Drive Cross-Functional Programs: Lead programs that span embedded (ESP32/STM32, FreeRTOS), mobile, and cloud teams. Work with engineering leaders to break down roadmaps into executable milestones, identify dependencies early, and keep work flowing across disciplines.
Be the Scrum Master: Work with various parts of the software team to facilitate sprint planning, stand-ups, executing sprints, retrospectives, etc.
Build Delivery Visibility: Use Linear to structure work, track progress, and surface risks. Establish dashboards and reporting rhythms that give leadership a clear, honest view of delivery health.
Manage Risk & Dependencies: Proactively identify blockers, integration risks, and cross-team dependencies—especially where firmware, hardware, and cloud touch. Coordinate with hardware, QA, operations, and support teams to align schedules.
Coordinate Fleet Rollouts: Work with engineering to plan and monitor OTA deployments via AWS IoT. Define rollout stages, monitor telemetry for regressions, and coordinate rapid response when issues surface in the field.
Run Incident & Postmortem Processes: Drive clear communication, coordinate resolution, and lead blameless postmortems that turn incidents into lasting improvements.
Establish Engineering Rhythms: Build the meeting, planning, and reporting cadences that keep a multidisciplinary software team aligned—sprint planning, release planning, roadmap reviews, and quarterly milestones.
Partner with Product & Hardware: Work closely with product managers and hardware program managers to align software delivery with NPI timelines, certification milestones, and launch dates.