Director, Technical Program Manager

Rover.com • Seattle, WA

3d • $188,330 - $250,479 • Hybrid

About The Position

Rover is looking for a Director of Technical Program Management to guide how complex technical work is planned, sequenced, and delivered as the company continues to evolve and invest across both existing and new product initiatives. As Rover’s systems and initiatives become more interconnected, this role focuses on building additional leverage—helping teams stay aligned, execution remain predictable, and outcomes remain strong.

This is a senior leadership role for someone who brings strong technical judgment, execution discipline, and systems thinking, combined with a player-coach mindset. The Director of TPM operates close to the work to influence decisions and outcomes, while also shaping how initiatives are structured, owned, and driven across the organization.

The role carries responsibility for leading and developing the TPM function at Rover—managing and coaching a small team of TPMs, setting clear expectations for effective program leadership, and establishing shared patterns and practices that strengthen execution consistency. Through a combination of hands-on engagement and organizational leadership, this role helps ensure complex initiatives are driven effectively and supported by durable execution practices.

Qualified candidates are comfortable operating in ambiguous, cross-functional environments, trusted by senior engineering and product leaders, and motivated by strengthening how complex technology organizations plan and execute work.

Requirements

• 15+ years of experience leading large-scale technical programs in complex engineering environments.
• Experience defining, shaping, and scaling a Technical Program Management function, including organizational structure, role definitions, engagement models with cross-functional partners, and the evolution of TPM practices over time.
• Proven success leading highly complex, cross-functional initiatives spanning multiple teams and domains, often over multiple quarters, where execution decisions had clear customer or business impact.
• Strong technical foundation with the ability to understand and reason about complex, interconnected systems and architectures, including large, customer-facing platforms with reliability, scalability, and performance considerations.
• Excellent communication and influence skills across technical and non-technical audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to operate effectively in highly ambiguous environments.

Nice To Haves

• Background working with platform, infrastructure, or data teams.
• Experience in marketplace, consumer, or global products.

Responsibilities

• Provide program leadership and execution guidance for high-impact, cross-functional initiatives, stepping in directly when appropriate while ensuring work is effectively driven by the right roles.
• Evolve how Rover plans, sequences, and delivers complex, cross-functional technical initiatives.
• Support alignment across teams by anticipating and addressing dependencies, risks, tradeoffs, and sequencing challenges in ambiguous environments.
• Partner closely with Engineering, Product, Design, and Data leaders to clarify ownership, scope, milestones, success metrics, and tradeoffs for major initiatives.
• Serve as a trusted partner to senior leaders, helping teams navigate ambiguity and make informed execution decisions across organizational boundaries.
• Build, manage, and mentor a small team of Technical Program Managers, coaching them on execution rigor, judgment, and cross-functional influence.
• Lead and develop the TPM function, establishing shared expectations, patterns, and practices that strengthen execution consistency and effectiveness over time.
• Provide data-driven visibility into execution health to enable faster decision-making, surface tradeoffs, and proactively address risks with senior leaders and executives.
• Define and use execution and program-level metrics to preserve strong outcomes while increasing consistency and leverage across initiatives.
• Serve as a trusted technical thought partner, bringing deep understanding of Rover’s systems, platforms, and architecture to planning and execution discussions.
• Ensure initiatives appropriately account for system design, reliability, security, scalability, and long-term maintainability.
• Drive a culture of accountability, ownership, and cross-functional trust that supports effective execution and strong collaboration across teams.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation
• 401k match
• Long-term incentive plan with a company performance-based cash payout
• Flexible PTO
• Competitive benefits package, including medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Commuter benefits
• Bring your dog to work (and unlimited puppy time)
• Pet benefits, including $1000 toward adopting your first dog or cat
• Stocked fridges, coffee, soda, and lots of treats (for humans and dogs) and free catered lunches monthly
• Regular team activities performed in-person and virtually

What This Job Offers

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