At Zendesk, we are passionate about building software that delivers the ultimate customer experience. Your favorite brands maximize our products to engage you as a customer, and we lead the industry with beautifully simple software. We’re constantly innovating, and we apply this philosophy to all prioritized initiatives.
Job Summary
As a Principal Technical Program Manager (TPM) within Product Development, you will lead multiple complex, cross-functional technical programs that deliver measurable business outcomes and directly support functional level OKRs. You operate with a deep end-to-end view of value creation across Zendesk, proactively identifying cross-functional friction and dependencies before they surface as delivery risks. You will drive the narrative and operating cadence with senior leaders, translate strategy into executable plans, and ensure high-quality, predictable delivery through strong change management, risk mitigation, and stakeholder alignment.
You are trusted for sound judgment in ambiguity, for connecting the dots across teams and roadmaps, and for elevating program management standards through mentorship and process improvements that scale. You’ll have the opportunity to work autonomously but also have the support of our highly distributed Program Management team. You will be the glue that holds it all together, ensuring cross-team, cross-functional collaboration runs smoothly from end to end. You will have a global reach in this role and can expect to work with colleagues across EMEA, APAC and AMER.
What You’ll Be Doing
- Lead multiple concurrent, technical programs across Product Development and key partner functions, ensuring end-to-end delivery against milestones, outcomes, and quality bars.
- Drive OKR delivery: partner closely with KR owners and reporters to develop and drive the narrative, tie supporting programs into a cohesive story, and ensure progress is measurable and visible.
- Identify cross-functional dependencies and friction points early; design execution plans that account for end-to-end impacts across Zendesk and reduce delivery risk.
- Own program governance: establish decision-making forums, operating rhythms, and escalation paths; keep senior leaders informed with clear asks, options, and tradeoffs.
- Apply exceptional execution discipline: manage scope, critical path, risks, and change control to limit surprises; ensure mitigations are in place before issues become delivery blockers.
- Facilitate complex alignment and decision-making: guide groups through ambiguity using skilled facilitation, influence, and negotiation to drive clear outcomes.
- Communicate with executive presence: synthesize fragmented inputs into crisp narratives, business impact framing, and decision-ready updates for senior stakeholders.
- Mentor and uplevel others: coach TPM/PgM peers and partners on planning, execution standards, stakeholder management, and the craft of program leadership.
What You Bring to the Role
- Prior experience at a software company driving programs within an Engineering organization and having released at least three large scale releases.
- Strong understanding of how to translate goals and strategy into plans for execution and experience supporting teams that design and build tools for other developers.
- Familiarity with Technical Program Management tools and agile methodologies: Jira, Confluence, Kanban, etc.
- Experience in identifying and calculating inherent risks, determining their impact, and providing appropriate mitigation planning.
- Strong, demonstrable facilitation skills, with a knack for building bridges between teams across multiple locations and driving decisions.
- Experience working across multiple global programs simultaneously.
That said, if your experience looks a little different from what we’ve identified and you think you can rock the role, we’d love to learn more about you!.
The intelligent heart of customer experience
Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.
Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working, enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.
As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency, we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position, in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.
Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here.
Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please send an e-mail to [email protected] with your specific accommodation request.
