Senior Technical Program Manager

About the team

Zillow's People Technology organization builds and operates the platforms that power how Zillow employees work: Workday, ServiceNow, and the agentic AI layer connecting these systems to the surfaces employees use every day - Slack, Google Workspace, Zoom, and AI tools. The India engineering team owns this platform stack end to end: production access, change ownership, on-call rotation, and direct relationships with the business teams we support.

Zillow Group is a strategic, mission-driven organization focused on delivering exceptional experiences and measurable outcomes. Our work spans cross-functional partnership, scalable programs and operational excellence in support of Zillow's mission. We bring deep experience working across diverse teams in a dynamic, high-growth environment, balancing strategic thinking with hands-on execution to drive meaningful business impact. We are seeking an experienced professional to support our workforce expansion in India.

About the role

As Sr. Technical Program Manager, you are the connective tissue of the PeopleTech delivery model. You own the sprint cadence, the handoff quality gate between Product and Engineering, and the cross-team coordination that keeps India-based engineering and US-based product and business partners in sync. You are a single, senior individual contributor - not a team of TPMs - which means you need to be decisive, organized, and confident operating across time zones without a lot of structural backup.

You will work directly with the Product Managers (US-based) and the India Engineering team, and will be a key voice in how the model matures over time. This is a high-visibility role in a new operating model that is still being built; you will help define how it works, not just execute inside it.

Responsibilities

• Own sprint execution end to end: create and close sprints in Jira, run grooming and planning, lead standup, track capacity and velocity, and ensure all stories are estimated and complete before each sprint closes.
• Serve as the handoff quality gate between Product and Engineering: review stories for build readiness before sprint commitment, flag ambiguity or missing technical context, and resolve open requirements questions in partnership with PM and Engineering before work begins.
• Own the US-India coordination bridge: run a daily touchpoint with the PM to carry blocker and handoff status, facilitate the overlap-window ceremonies (grooming, sprint planning, sprint demo) where PM and Engineering both need to be present, and maintain async-first practices that keep live meeting load low.
• Manage cross-team dependencies and risks: identify sequencing issues and resource constraints early, route blockers to the right owner (Engineering or PM), and escalate to leadership when something threatens delivery.
• Coordinate Unit Test logistics: manage test resources, defect tracking, and the communication between Engineering and the PM during unit testing cycles.
• Document the team's operational model: post-launch on-call and support structure, escalation paths, and the handoff from project delivery into business-as-usual operations.
• Drive continuous improvement: use retrospective findings to sharpen handoff processes, story quality, and sprint predictability over time; build and share repeatable practices that improve how the team works.
• Apply AI tools to program work: status synthesis, risk and dependency tracking, meeting notes and follow-ups, draft communications - and help the broader team build that fluency.

• 5-8 years of technical program or project/scrum team management experience delivering complex, cross-functional programs in enterprise SaaS or platform environments.
• Demonstrated ownership of programs spanning multiple teams end to end, including programs where you defined scope and goals yourself in ambiguous conditions.
• Strong technical fluency: you can understand and explain how Workday, ServiceNow, or comparable enterprise platforms fit together, reason about integration dependencies, and assess whether a user story is ready to build - without needing to write the code yourself.
• Demonstrated working knowledge of Workday HCM or ServiceNow (module configuration, integrations, annual HR cycles, security model basics).
• Experience operating in a distributed or offshore/nearshore engineering model, with US-based product and business partners - you understand how to design for async-first collaboration and how to use overlap hours well.
• Best-in-class Jira and sprint management skills: you run ceremonies cleanly, keep the board accurate, and produce sprint summaries that give leadership a clear picture without requiring a meeting.
• Strong communication across technical and non-technical audiences, including senior executives - you know what altitude is right for each conversation.
• Track record of influencing without authority, resolving blockers, and driving cross-org alignment on decisions.
• Fluent with AI tools for program management and able to help others build that fluency.
• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, IT, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

As the world continues its inevitable evolution, Zillow continues to push the boundaries of real estate with equal focus on our customers, our employees, our partners and our communities. Zillow has always been known for our leadership and innovation, and we’re continually looking for new ways to make it radically easier for people to move. Today, our vision is to create “the housing super app” — an integrated real estate experience that makes transactions more accessible, more digital, more seamless, more inclusive and more delightful to our customers.