Technical Program Manager - Software

Fellow•San Francisco, CA

6h•$175,000 - $195,000•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 be responsible for orchestrating the delivery of firmware, mobile, and cloud releases across a 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, identifying potential issues and ensuring seamless integration between firmware, mobile app, and cloud backend deployments. This position is based in San Francisco, CA, with a requirement for 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: you can read code, understand system architecture, and hold your own in technical discussions with embedded and cloud engineers.
Experience with OTA update systems, fleet management, and staged rollouts.
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; you can run a room of senior engineers and also produce a crisp status update for leadership.
Calm under pressure. When a release slips or a rollout goes sideways, you're the one bringing clarity and a plan.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with C/C++, FreeRTOS, ESP32/STM32, or similar embedded environments is a major plus.
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 the 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: When things break—in dev or in the field—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.