Technical Program Manager - Software

About Fellow

We believe that the act of making should be meaningful and fulfilling, done with intention and precision. Fellow makes beautifully functional tools for any kitchen, designed in San Francisco and used around the world. When the simple motions of life become small moments of joy, that's Everyday Magic.™

We're looking for a Software Technical Program Manager  to be the operational backbone of our software organization. You'll orchestrate the delivery of firmware, mobile, and cloud releases across our growing portfolio of connected coffee products—ensuring that every update reaching a customer's kettle, grinder, or brewer is reliable, on-time, and thoroughly validated.

Your mission is to turn complex, cross-disciplinary engineering efforts into predictable, repeatable execution. You'll be the person who sees around corners, unblocks teams, and ensures that a firmware change on an ESP32 lands in harmony with a mobile app update and a cloud backend deployment.

This role is based in our San Francisco, CA office and requires regular in-office presence in accordance with company policy.

Who You Are

You're a highly organized, technically fluent program manager who thrives in environments where hardware, firmware, and cloud all need to ship together. You're equally comfortable reading a pull request, running a release readiness review, and facilitating a postmortem. You understand that in IoT, a missed dependency or a skipped test can mean a bricked device in a customer's home—and you treat release quality with the seriousness it deserves.

You've worked closely with embedded and cloud engineers, and you know the rhythms of firmware development: bring-up, integration, field testing, staged rollouts, and OTA. You're a clear communicator who can translate between engineering, product, hardware, QA, and leadership without losing the signal.

What You'll Do

• Own the Release Process: Plan, coordinate, and execute firmware, mobile, and cloud releases across multiple product lines. Run release readiness reviews, manage release branches, coordinate staged OTA rollouts through AWS IoT, and own go/no-go decisions with product and engineering leads.
• Drive Cross-Functional Programs: Lead programs that span embedded (ESP32/STM32, FreeRTOS), mobile, and cloud teams. Work with the engineering leaders to break down roadmaps into executable milestones, identify dependencies early, and keep work flowing across disciplines.
• Be the Scrum Master: Work with various parts of the software team to facilitate sprint planning, stand-ups, executing sprints, retrospectives, etc. 
• Build Delivery Visibility: Be the scrum master for the software teams - use Linear to structure work, track progress, and surface risks. Establish dashboards and reporting rhythms that give leadership a clear, honest view of delivery health.
• Manage Risk & Dependencies: Proactively identify blockers, integration risks, and cross-team dependencies—especially where firmware, hardware, and cloud touch. Coordinate with hardware, QA, operations, and support teams to align schedules.
• Coordinate Fleet Rollouts: Work with engineering to plan and monitor OTA deployments via AWS IoT. Define rollout stages, monitor telemetry for regressions, and coordinate rapid response when issues surface in the field.
• Run Incident & Postmortem Processes: When things break—in dev or in the field—you drive clear communication, coordinate resolution, and lead blameless postmortems that turn incidents into lasting improvements.
• Establish Engineering Rhythms: Build the meeting, planning, and reporting cadences that keep a multidisciplinary software team aligned—sprint planning, release planning, roadmap reviews, and quarterly milestones.
• Partner with Product & Hardware: Work closely with product managers and hardware program managers to align software delivery with NPI timelines, certification milestones, and launch dates.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in technical program management, release management, or engineering program leadership, ideally in connected hardware, IoT, or consumer electronics.
• Hands-on experience coordinating releases that involve embedded firmware, mobile apps, and cloud services—where all three need to ship in lockstep.
• Strong technical fluency: you can read code, understand system architecture, and hold your own in technical discussions with embedded and cloud engineers. Familiarity with C/C++, FreeRTOS, ESP32/STM32, or similar embedded environments is a major plus.
• Experience with OTA update systems, fleet management, and staged rollouts (AWS IoT experience strongly preferred).
• Proficiency with modern engineering tools: GitHub (branching strategies, PR workflows, Actions), Linear (or Jira/similar), and CI/CD pipelines.
• Track record of establishing release processes, QA gates, and delivery metrics in fast-moving engineering organizations.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; you can run a room of senior engineers and also produce a crisp status update for leadership.
• Calm under pressure. When a release slips or a rollout goes sideways, you're the one bringing clarity and a plan.
• Bonus: experience with hardware NPI cycles, FCC/CE certification timelines, or consumer electronics launches.

Why You'll Love This Role

• A creative, fast-moving environment where ideas turn into action
• Competitive compensation including employee equity plan
• Generous paid time off plan
• 401k with company contribution after 6 months of employment
• Medical/dental/vision insurance
• Better Yourself Wellness credit & Better Your Community donation matching
• Monthly Fitness Stipend
• Summer Fridays
• Paid Parental Leave
• Generous discount on Fellow products
• Best coffee anywhere

Salary Range: $175,000 - $195,000 (Plus, bonus and equity package)

Our highest goal at Fellow is creating a safe, inclusive, and rewarding environment where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and thrive. We are committed to building diverse teams and strongly encourage people from underrepresented groups, including but not limited to women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, people with disabilities, members of ethnic minorities, foreign-born residents, and veterans to apply. 

Fellow is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will not be discriminated against because of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, religion, national origin, citizenship status, disability, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, medical condition or any protected category prohibited by local, state or federal laws.