Senior Technical Program Manager, Platform

About Us:

ChowNow is one of the leading players in off-premise restaurant technology. As takeout becomes a vital revenue stream for independent restaurants, our platform helps owners focus on what they do best—serving great food—by offering solutions across the entire digital dining experience. From building branded websites and mobile apps, to powering online orders, managing menus, consolidating delivery, and running targeted marketing, we give restaurants the tools to grow on their own terms.

We support over 20,000 restaurants across North America, helping process $1B+ in gross food sales while saving our partners over $700M in third-party commission fees. Through our white-label ordering solutions, a growing demand network (including Google, Yelp, Apple, and Snap), and a diner-friendly marketplace, we empower independent restaurants to own their customer relationships and avoid inflated pricing and fees charged by 3rd party delivery apps like Uber and Doordash. 

Founded in 2012, we’ve navigated rapid growth and transformation—from startup roots through the pandemic boom—and are now beginning an exciting new era under our CEO, Kanika Soni. As we evolve with new leadership and cutting-edge tools, we’re deepening our commitment to helping local restaurants thrive in the digital economy.

About the Position:

As a Senior Technical Program Manager, you will be a champion for engineering excellence and institutionalizing best practices for our distributed workforce. This is a high-impact role that requires strong ownership of complex work, effective dependency management, and the ability to keep multiple work streams moving forward. You are joining us at a key inflection point as we scale the engineering organization to meet growing customer demand.

This is a remote position located in the United States, and will report to an Engineering Manager; No direct reports.

This is a remote role based in the United States. Please note: ChowNow is not eligible to employ in every state and the recruiting team will confirm location and eligibility before moving past initial stages.

What We Love About You:

You put restaurants first. You deeply understand the importance of local restaurants and put them at the center of everything you do. You aim to help them not only survive but thrive.

You celebrate diversity. You recognize that diversity and inclusivity matter. You’re committed to progress, which means everyone gets the support and resources they need, no matter who they are.  You have an ability to listen to other team members' ideas and can thrive in an environment that embraces individuality. Everyone’s voice counts.

You raise your hand. You consistently go above and beyond what is asked of you. You help your peers accomplish their tasks while also excelling at accomplishing your own. When you have a smart idea, you raise your hand and share it.

You keep reaching. You set clear ambitious goals. You don’t allow yourself to become complacent with where you’re at and what you’ve done, so you seek out new opportunities and challenges.

What Success Looks Like:

• Partner with the Engineering Managers to plan product expansion roadmaps for platform engineering.
• Lead end-to-end planning and delivery for complex cross-functional programs with clear goals, timelines, owners, and success metrics.
• Partner with Principal Engineers, Staff Engineers, and senior engineering leadership to develop plans to scale our systems and services, and in some cases - help break our monolithic backend into multiple services.
• Build and maintain program plans, RAID logs, status updates, and executive-ready communication materials.
• Build consensus and deliver high-value outcomes.
• Develop project plans across teams as needed within the Product and Engineering department (DevOps, IT, Product, Engineering, and QA), as well as cross-functional teams extending throughout the company.
• Partner with project-specific stakeholders throughout the company to capture details and perform successful change management with third-party development partners.
• Utilize lifecycle data to proactively raise risks and trade-off decisions to key stakeholders. Actively mitigate these with scope control and resourcing.
• Identify and resolve all cross-organizational dependencies and potential blockers.
• Ensure all status materials and roadmap documents are compiled, aggregated and complete and remain well-maintained.
• Drive improvement and iteration on the platform engineering roadmap.
• Facilitate iteration planning, progress tracking, retrospectives and reporting.
• Develop key metrics to track the effectiveness of the distribution of work to third party partners.

• Progress through our Ramp Camp (ChowNow’s New Hire Onboarding Experience)
• Learn about our sales and onboarding processes to understand the value ChowNow brings to local restaurant owners.
• Work with key Engineering Managers to identify priority projects, meet with key stakeholders, and develop a plan for immediate action, while curating plans for future development.

• Understand our current platform and services posture.
• Manage relationships with third-party development partners.
• Establish and monitor plans to ensure the realization of goals and continuous improvements in relation to product expansion programs and platform engineering.
• Perform weekly reviews of feature velocity and platform engineering improvement opportunities from the third party development partners and escalate to the VP of Engineering and CTO as needed.

• Present proposed project plans to Product Management and Executive teams.
• Identify and execute on opportunities for more effective and efficient processes.
• Identify risks and apply mitigation techniques to ensure timely project execution.

• You have 5+ years of experience performing cross-functional technical project management, preferably in a startup environment.
• You have 3+ years of experience managing or implementing an agile, scrum-based team of teams framework that influences a 50+ person engineering organization.
• You understand and are passionate about all things platform engineering throughout an organization: best practices, testing, and training.
• You have a deep understanding of end-to-end architecture and the software engineering life cycle.
• You understand the basics of cloud infrastructure delivery and associated key metrics.
• You have excellent leadership skills with superior written and verbal communication skills.
• You like to solve problems and are always looking for ways to improve team performance.
• You know how to keep teams organized and on track.
• You are comfortable in fast-paced and complex environments. 

• Expected Base Salary Range: $149,450 - $195,375 (depending on candidate location and experience)
• Ongoing training and growth opportunities.
• A "Best Place to Work" winner multiple times where we focus on creating a great employee experience.
• Rock solid medical, dental, and vision plans.
• Mental Health Coverage - we offer several programs to support your mental health and wellness goals.
• Unlimited Paid Vacation. We expect you to work hard, but still enjoy your personal life
• 7 weeks of baby bonding time for all new parents (within the first year of birth or adoption), 8 Weeks of Paid Pregnancy Leave.
• 401(k) Matching
• Employer-contributing student loan assistance program or continuing education reimbursement program
• Employee Stock Incentive Plan.
• Pet insurance for your fur babies
• Consistent & fair leadership: we’ll share info, set clear goals, show you respect, and treat everyone fairly.
• Enough freedom to spread your wings while still holding you accountable.

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this job. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties and skills required.

As one of ChowNow’s core values, “Celebrates Diversity”, we are committed to an inclusive and diverse work environment. ChowNow is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, marital status or any legally protected status.  We are committed to developing a barrier-free recruitment process and work environment, if you require any accommodation, please let us know at your earliest convenience and we’ll work with you to meet your accessibility needs.

Information Regarding Recruiting Scams: ChowNow does not engage in outreach to prospective candidates by text message about employment opportunities, interviews, or employment offers, and we do not make job offers after only one interview. ChowNow does not ask candidates to submit sensitive personal information (Passport details, banking information, etc.) as part of the interview process. ChowNow employment offers are made by a ChowNow Talent Acquisition team member with a @chownow.com email address only. ChowNow does not ask candidates to provide funds to the company for onboarding, equipment, or supplies. If you receive an employment inquiry or employment offer from a non @chownow.com email address, consider it spam.

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