Senior Program Manager - Confluent Business Technology

IBM
IBM

IT, Operations

California, USA · Tokyo, Japan · Texas City, TX, USA

Posted on Jun 20, 2026
Introduction

At IBM Software, we transform client challenges into solutions. Building the world’s leading AI-powered, cloud-native products that shape the future of business and society. Our legacy of innovation creates endless opportunities for IBMers to learn, grow, and make an impact on a global scale. Working in Software means joining a team fueled by curiosity and collaboration. You’ll work with diverse technologies, partners, and industries to design, develop, and deliver solutions that power digital transformation. With a culture that values innovation, growth, and continuous learning, IBM Software places you at the heart of IBM’s product and technology landscape. Here, you’ll have the tools and opportunities to advance your career while creating software that changes the world. With Confluent, data doesn’t sit still. We put information in motion, streaming in near real time so organizations can react faster, build smarter, and deliver experiences as dynamic as the world around them.

Your role and responsibilities

About the Role

Confluent is looking for a Senior Technical Program Manager to help lead complex, cross-functional initiatives across the Business Technology / CIO organization. This role sits at the intersection of Product, Engineering, and enterprise systems, turning strategic priorities into executable plans and measurable outcomes.

The Senior TPM will play a critical role in driving enterprise programs that support new product introductions, Quote-to-Cash capabilities, and major IT integration efforts. Because Business Technology owns core downstream systems that enable Product and Engineering launches, this person will help ensure programs are planned well, dependencies are surfaced early, and delivery stays predictable across a broad set of stakeholders.

This is a high-impact, hands-on role for someone who is comfortable navigating ambiguity, aligning technical and business teams, and driving execution across multiple workstreams. The ideal candidate combines strong program leadership, technical fluency, operational discipline, and stakeholder management skills to help teams deliver scalable and reliable outcomes.

What You’ll Do

● Lead large, complex, cross-functional programs from planning through execution and delivery.

● Partner with Business Technology, Product, Engineering, and operational teams to define scope, clarify business value, and translate goals into structured roadmaps.

● Drive programs supporting new product introductions (NPI), especially where Quote-to-Cash systems and enterprise platforms are critical downstream dependencies.

● Coordinate initiatives involving enterprise applications and IT systems integrations, including support for integration efforts tied to IBM and other strategic business changes.

● Build and maintain integrated program plans, timelines, milestones, and communication rhythms across multiple teams and functions.

● Identify risks, dependencies, blockers, and trade-offs early, and drive clear decision-making to keep programs on track.

● Create visibility for stakeholders and leadership through consistent status updates, execution dashboards, and clear reporting on progress, issues, and outcomes.

● Partner with teams to improve delivery predictability, execution rigor, and operational readiness across programs.

● Help establish scalable program management practices, governance mechanisms, and cross-functional planning processes within the Business Technology organization.

● Develop a strong understanding of Confluent’s business processes, enterprise systems landscape, and technical constraints in order to influence priorities and execution strategy.

Required education
Bachelor's Degree
Preferred education
Master's Degree
Required technical and professional expertise

  • 7+ years of experience in Technical Program Management, Program Management, or related roles within software, SaaS, or enterprise systems environments.
  • Proven track record delivering large-scale, cross-functional programs, managing multiple stakeholders, risks, dependencies, and parallel initiatives.
  • Strong expertise in Agile program management tools and practices, including Jira for workflow management, tracking deliverables, and reporting progress.
  • Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence outcomes and build alignment across technical, operational, and executive audiences in a matrixed organization.
  • Highly collaborative and execution-focused, with strong attention to detail, experience working with globally distributed teams, and a bias for action in fast-paced, ambiguous environments.
Preferred technical and professional experience

  • Experience within Enterprise/Business Technology environments, including CIO or internal platform organizations, with familiarity across systems such as Salesforce, ERP, billing, and IT engineering platforms.

  • Strong understanding of end-to-end enterprise processes and delivery, including Quote-to-Cash, product launch support, and close partnership with Product and Engineering for planning and execution.

  • Data-driven program management expertise, including dashboarding/reporting (e.g., SQL, JQL, BigQuery), solid grounding in program management frameworks, and exposure to large-scale initiatives such as M&A or IT integrations (certifications a plus).

ABOUT BUSINESS UNIT

IBM Software infuses core business operations with intelligence—from machine learning to generative AI—to help make organizations more responsive, productive, and resilient. IBM Software helps clients put AI into action now to create real value with trust, speed, and confidence across digital labor, IT automation, application modernization, security, and sustainability. Critical to this is the ability to make use of all data, because AI is only as good as the data that fuels it. In most organizations data is spread across multiple clouds, on premises, in private datacenters, and at the edge. IBM’s AI and data platform scales and accelerates the impact of AI with trusted data, and provides leading capabilities to train, tune and deploy AI across business. IBM’s hybrid cloud platform is one of the most comprehensive and consistent approach to development, security, and operations across hybrid environments—a flexible foundation for leveraging data, wherever it resides, to extend AI deep into a business.

YOUR LIFE @ IBM

In a world where technology never stands still, we understand that, dedication to our clients success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility in all our relationships, lives in what we do as IBMers as we strive to be the catalyst that makes the world work better.

Being an IBMer means you’ll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you’ll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.

Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.

Are you ready to be an IBMer?

ABOUT IBM

IBM’s greatest invention is the IBMer. We believe that through the application of intelligence, reason and science, we can improve business, society and the human condition, bringing the power of an open hybrid cloud and AI strategy to life for our clients and partners around the world.

Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are not only one of the largest corporate organizations in the world, we’re also one of the biggest technology and consulting employers, with many of the Fortune 500 companies relying on the IBM Cloud to run their business.

At IBM, we pride ourselves on being an early adopter of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain. Now it’s time for you to join us on our journey to being a responsible technology innovator and a force for good in the world.

IBM is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, or other characteristics protected by the applicable law. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

OTHER RELEVANT JOB DETAILS

IBM offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits program. Eligible employees may have access to:

- Healthcare benefits including medical & prescription drug coverage, dental, vision, and mental health & well being

- Financial programs such as 401(k), cash balance pension plan, the IBM Employee Stock Purchase Plan, financial counseling, life insurance, short & long- term disability coverage, and opportunities for performance based salary incentive programs

- Generous paid time off including 12 holidays, minimum 56 hours sick time, 120 hours vacation, 12 weeks parental bonding leave in accordance with IBM Policy, and other Paid Care Leave programs. IBM also offers paid family leave benefits to eligible employees where required by applicable law

- Training and educational resources on our personalized, AI-driven learning platform where IBMers can grow skills and obtain industry-recognized certifications to achieve their career goals

- Diverse and inclusive employee resource groups, giving & volunteer opportunities, and discounts on retail products, services & experiences

We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.

This position was posted on the date cited in the key job details section and is anticipated to remain posted for 21 days from this date or less if not needed to fill the role.

IBM will not be providing visa sponsorship for this position now or in the future. Therefore, in order to be considered for this position, you must have the ability to work without a need for current or future visa sponsorship.

The compensation range and benefits for this position are based on a full-time schedule for a full calendar year. The salary will vary depending on your job-related skills, experience and location. Pay increment and frequency of pay will be in accordance with employment classification and applicable laws. For part time roles, your compensation and benefits will be adjusted to reflect your hours. Benefits may be pro-rated for those who start working during the calendar year.

See more open positions at IBM