Senior Principal, Technical Program Management (Research & Development)

Twilio is the world’s leading customer engagement platform empowering developers to build modern communication applications and experiences designed to be trusted, simple and smart. Twilio is looking for a Senior Principal Technical Program Manager to help direct a portfolio of strategic, complex, and multidisciplinary programs that significantly accelerate R&D's business impact. You'll set program strategy and lead program teams to successfully deliver business, operational, and technical improvements across Engineering & Product organizations. As a trusted strategic advisor, you will play a critical role in driving alignment, setting priorities, and delivering high-impact programs that advance strategic initiatives.

• Orchestrate the technical strategy and multi-year roadmap for high-impact, cross-organizational technical programs that define the future of Twilio’s platforms. Manage systemic complexity and high-stakes risk while serving as the primary technical point of contact for SVPs and executive leadership on mission-critical programs.
• Architect the end-to-end execution framework, including global sequencing logic, multi-tier governance, architectural integration patterns, and enterprise-grade operational success metrics. Ensure the strategy accounts for technical debt retirement and long-term platform health.
• Orchestrate Cross-Portfolio Alignment: Own the master execution roadmap for complex, interdependent product suites. Identify and resolve structural misalignment between engineering roadmaps, surfacing high-stakes tradeoffs and resource reallocations to executive leadership.
• Partner deeply with lead engineers/architects to evaluate technical approaches, integration patterns, and operational risks; ensure plans reflect real system constraints, failure modes, and readiness requirements.
• Define Systems of Accountability: Establish the organizational 'operating system' for high-stakes programs. Define standards for how cross-functional teams interact, ensuring clear ownership across siloed domains when technical priorities conflict.
• Anticipate Ecosystem-Wide Impacts: Proactively identify 'hidden' technical requirements across the platform (e.g., global security / compliance shifts, complex billing migrations, or observability gaps) and ensure they are integrated into the core technical design.
• Scale R&D Excellence: Design and institutionalize durable program frameworks and technical readiness standards that elevate the execution maturity of the entire global R&D organization. Build the playbooks that become the Twilio standard for large-scale engineering delivery.
• Force Multiplier & Mentor: Mentor Principal TPMs and Engineering Leads. Raise the collective bar for technical risk management, executive storytelling, and high-velocity decision-making.

• 12+ years of experience leading massive-scale technical programs in a high-growth, distributed systems and software engineering domain.
• Strategic Technical Leadership: Proven ability to influence technical direction and architectural decisions at the VP/SVP level, with a track record of steering programs through complex technical pivots.
• Systemic Execution Expertise: Expert-level mastery in defining execution strategies for programs with hundreds of engineers; ability to identify integration risks and failure modes before they manifest.
• Executive Influence: Exceptional ability to frame highly technical challenges into strategic business narratives, driving consensus among senior executives with competing priorities.
• Architectural Fluency: Deep technical depth in cloud-scale infrastructure, API-first design, and distributed systems. Proven experience influencing Staff/Principal/Distinguished Engineers and challenging assumptions when necessary.
• Operational Rigor: Demonstrated success in building and scaling operational readiness frameworks using self-service tools to surface status, actions, and KPIs across a multi-thousand-person R&D organization.
• Mastery of Ambiguity: Proven track record of bringing order to chaos, creating high-functioning execution structures in environments where specifications, technologies, and market demands are in constant flux.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, a related field or equivalent practical experience.

• Master’s in computer science or engineering or a related field.
• 5+ years of technical program management at hyperscaler or Fortune 100 cloud software/infrastructure companies.
• Domain expertise in global-scale communications (Telephony, SMS, CPaaS) or high-throughput distributed platforms.
• Experience leading 'company-bet' transformations, such as major cloud migrations or foundational platform re-architectures.

This role will be remote and based in the United States.

Working at Twilio offers many benefits, including competitive pay, generous time off, ample parental and wellness leave, healthcare, a retirement savings program, and much more. Offerings vary by location.

The estimated pay ranges for this role are as follows:

Applications for this role will be accepted on an ongoing basis. Apply now via the provided link.