Technical Program Manager

KWI•Melville, NY

13d•$135,000 - $140,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Opportunity KWI keeps specialty retail running for Pandora, Bluemercury, Tom Ford, and dozens of other brands, and behind every storefront is an engineering team shipping constantly. Today those releases are coordinated on instinct and hallway conversations. You're here to change that. As our Technical Program Manager, you'll own the master release timeline, build the system that keeps every team aligned, and make shipping shorter, smoother, and more predictable, reporting straight to the CTO with a clear mandate to fix what slows us down. The Company We are a small team with a big vision: to be the premier provider of cloud technology solutions for retailers. KWI offers a unified commerce solution that is designed to help specialty retailers grow their business. Our portfolio of customers includes Pandora, Bluemercury, Tom Ford, and many other globally recognizable brands. We combine Point of Sale, Merchandising, Order Management, eCommerce, CRM, and Loss Prevention into one cloud-based platform. We are a Values and Mission driven organization, and we believe that if we develop and demonstrate leadership in our strategy, operations, and people, we will continue to drive product innovation and service excellence. As the Technical Program Manager, you excel at the following core competencies Cross-team release coordination Own the master release timeline across all engineering teams, with a particular focus on the POS release cycle. Map and track cross-team dependencies; surface conflicts early and drive resolution before they become delays. Facilitate go/no-go checkpoints. You can approve a go based on readiness data; all no-go decisions escalate to the CTO and Head of Product. Manage the release calendar so teams on different schedules do not collide. Establish and enforce change control: once scope is locked, late changes require formal approval with an impact assessment Cross-functional coordination Define and maintain RACI matrices for release activities across Engineering, QA, Technical Writing, Marketing, and Customer Success. Run release readiness reviews that include all involved departments, not just engineering. Serve as the single point of accountability for program-level release status visibility across the organization. Risk management and escalation Proactively identify risks to timelines, scope, and quality across all teams. Maintain a risk register and drive mitigation plans. Escalate to the CTO and Head of Product when cross-team conflicts cannot be resolved at the team level. The impact you'll make Process definition and documentation Convert tribal knowledge into documented, repeatable processes: release runbooks, checklists, onboarding guides. Define and maintain the release process end-to-end so it is survivable if any individual is unavailable. Establish templates for cross-team planning: dependency maps, risk registers, status reports. Identify bottlenecks and gaps; propose and implement improvements using retrospective data. Reporting and continuous improvement Design and own the organization-wide status reporting system: template, cadence, format, and a compilation mechanism so the report assembles itself. Author program-level status reports directly covering cross-team releases, dependency health, risks, and milestones. Partner with engineering leadership to mature delivery practices and introduce tooling that improves velocity and visibility. Establish program-level metrics (cycle time, release predictability, dependency-related delays) and use them to drive improvement.

Requirements

5 to 9 years of experience in technical program management, engineering program management, or a comparable role coordinating across multiple engineering teams.
Demonstrated ability to build and run release coordination at the program level, not just within a single team or project.
Strong technical fluency: you can hold a substantive conversation about architecture, dependencies, and technical risk without needing it simplified for you.
Experience defining and documenting processes from scratch, including runbooks, RACI matrices, and dependency tracking frameworks.
Track record of managing cross-functional stakeholders, including product, QA, marketing, and customer success, through complex releases.
Clear written communication: your status reports give leadership the information they need to make decisions, not a list of what everyone is working on.

Nice To Haves

Experience in a SaaS company serving retail or enterprise clients.
Familiarity with Kanban-based delivery workflows and how to mature them into more disciplined frameworks.
Hands-on experience evaluating or implementing AI-assisted workflows for delivery visibility or reporting.
Background working closely with a CTO or VP Engineering in a fast-moving product organization.

Responsibilities

Own the master release timeline across all engineering teams, with a particular focus on the POS release cycle.
Map and track cross-team dependencies; surface conflicts early and drive resolution before they become delays.
Facilitate go/no-go checkpoints.
Manage the release calendar so teams on different schedules do not collide.
Establish and enforce change control: once scope is locked, late changes require formal approval with an impact assessment.
Define and maintain RACI matrices for release activities across Engineering, QA, Technical Writing, Marketing, and Customer Success.
Run release readiness reviews that include all involved departments, not just engineering.
Serve as the single point of accountability for program-level release status visibility across the organization.
Proactively identify risks to timelines, scope, and quality across all teams.
Maintain a risk register and drive mitigation plans.
Escalate to the CTO and Head of Product when cross-team conflicts cannot be resolved at the team level.
Convert tribal knowledge into documented, repeatable processes: release runbooks, checklists, onboarding guides.
Define and maintain the release process end-to-end so it is survivable if any individual is unavailable.
Establish templates for cross-team planning: dependency maps, risk registers, status reports.
Identify bottlenecks and gaps; propose and implement improvements using retrospective data.
Design and own the organization-wide status reporting system: template, cadence, format, and a compilation mechanism so the report assembles itself.
Author program-level status reports directly covering cross-team releases, dependency health, risks, and milestones.
Partner with engineering leadership to mature delivery practices and introduce tooling that improves velocity and visibility.
Establish program-level metrics (cycle time, release predictability, dependency-related delays) and use them to drive improvement.