Staff Technical Program Manager

Full Time
Toronto, ON, Canada
3 days ago

At Index Exchange, we’re reinventing how digital advertising works—at scale. As a global advertising supply-side platform, we empower the world’s leading media owners and marketers to thrive in a programmatic, privacy-first ecosystem. 

We’re a proud industry pioneer with over 20 years of experience accelerating the ad technology evolution. Our proprietary tech is trusted by some of the world’s largest brands and media owners and plays a crucial role in keeping the internet open, accessible, and largely free. 

We process more than 550 billion real-time auctions every day (in comparison, Google processes 8.5 billion searches per day) with ultra-low latency. Our platform is vertically integrated from servers to networks and runs primarily on our own metal and cloud infrastructure. This end-to-end infrastructure is designed to provide both stability and agility, enabling us to adapt quickly as the market evolves. 

At the core of it all is our engineering-first culture. Our engineers tackle internet-scale problems across tight-knit, global teams. From moving petabytes of data and optimizing with AI to making real-time infrastructure decisions, Indexers have the agency and influence to shape the future of advertising. We move fast, build thoughtfully, and stay grounded in our core values. 

About The Role:

As a Staff Technical Program Manager supporting our Data Platform organization, you’ll help drive the delivery of initiatives that operate at truly global scale. Index powers one of the largest advertising exchanges in the world, processing over 550 billion real-time auctions every day—more than 60x the volume of daily Google searches. We ingest 2+ petabytes of data per day, running ultra-low latency pipelines across a vertically integrated platform built on both owned metal and cloud infrastructure. 

 This role is about enabling high-velocity delivery at massive scale—bringing structure and coordination to how we plan and execute work across a constantly evolving platform, while landing our most strategic Data Platform initiatives. You’ll lead cross-functional efforts from inception to delivery—aligning work to business objectives, managing dependencies and risk, and driving execution across the finish line. You’ll partner with Engineering, Product, and Infrastructure to scope initiatives, sequence delivery, and remove blockers. You’ll help ensure roadmaps stay current, plans are actionable, and teams are focused on the right outcomes. 

 Success in this role requires strong systems awareness and the ability to engage in technical conversations around architecture, pipelines, and infrastructure. The problems we solve are internet-scale—moving massive data, optimizing in real time, and building systems that are both resilient and fast. Your technical fluency and delivery-first mindset will help turn those challenges into execution-ready programs. 

 At Index, we move fast and build thoughtfully. We value engineering-led thinking, and our teams have the autonomy and influence to drive real impact. If you're a TPM who thrives on solving complex coordination puzzles and helping teams do their best work at scale—this role is for you. 

 

Responsibilities: 

  • Drive Program Delivery: Lead the planning and execution of large-scale software programs within the Data Platform division. 
  • Understand Technical Context: Engage in technical discussions, understand architectural decisions and trade-offs, and help guide delivery sequencing and risk evaluation. 
  • Clarify Scope and Maintain Planning Artifacts: Partner with Product and Engineering to define clear deliverables, requirements, and milestones. Help maintain the roadmap, portfolio backlog, and team-level PI plans to support coordinated, execution-ready plans across teams. 
  • Own Cross-Team Coordination: Work across teams and functions to manage dependencies, mitigate risks, and ensure efficient handoffs. 
  • Track and Communicate Progress: Maintain clear visibility into plans, timelines, and blockers using Jira and Confluence, and tailor updates for both technical and non-technical audiences. 
  • Facilitate Planning: Lead and support planning activities to define goals, align on outcomes and dependencies, and map a clear path to delivery. 
  • Champion Quality-First Delivery: Help teams deliver resilient, performant, and well-scoped software by emphasizing up-front clarity, risk management, and testable outcomes. 
  • Coach and Enable Teams: Support teams in leveling up their planning, delivery hygiene, and operational maturity. Provide coaching and hands-on support around backlog health and organization, metrics usage, and risk mitigation. 
  • Contribute to Process and Tooling Evolution: Identify gaps in planning and delivery workflows and contribute to tooling, documentation, and workflow improvements. Drive alignment across teams to SDLC standards and best practices while allowing for team-specific flexibility where appropriate. 
  • Connect Execution to Strategic Objectives: Ensure programs and planning artifacts are clearly linked to strategic goals and KPIs, enabling meaningful prioritization, visibility, and outcome tracking. 

 

Here's What You Need: 

  • 5+ years of experience in technical program or delivery management roles, with significant exposure to data platforms, infrastructure, or backend systems. 
  • Strong technical acumen—you are comfortable navigating architectural discussions, reading technical design and understanding system-level impact, and engaging deeply with engineers. 
  • Experience supporting large-scale data platforms, including streaming and batch pipelines, distributed processing frameworks (e.g., Kafka, Spark, Flink), and data warehousing technologies (e.g., Druid, StarRocks, Vertica). 
  • Demonstrated ability to manage cross-team software initiatives, with experience coordinating across Engineering, Product, and Operations 
  • Practical experience with Agile software development methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, etc.), and an understanding of how to tailor practices to team context without compromising alignment across programs and company-wide initiatives 
  • Proven ability to coach and influence teams to adopt improved delivery practices and planning workflows 
  • Experience contributing to process documentation, tooling, and frameworks that improve planning and delivery 
  • Proficiency with Jira and Confluence, including hands-on experience with Jira administration, workflow customization, and reporting to optimize team productivity 
  • Clear and confident communication, with the ability to adjust messaging for developers, senior leaders, and cross-functional stakeholders 
  • Organized and outcome-oriented, with a track record of delivering complex projects and managing competing priorities 
  • Experience in AdTech is helpful but not required—an interest in learning the nuances of programmatic advertising and exchange technology is key 
  • High integrity, accountability, and the ability to thrive in a dynamic, fast-moving environment 

 

Why You’ll Love Working Here:

  • Comprehensive health, dental, and vision plans for you and your dependents  
  • Paid time off, health days, and personal obligation days plus flexible work schedules  
  • Competitive retirement matching plans  
  • Equity packages  
  • Generous parental leave available to birthing, non-birthing, and adoptive parents  
  • Annual well-being allowance plus fitness discounts and group wellness activities  
  • Commuter benefits and discounts, where available   
  • Employee assistance program  
  • Mental health first aid program that provides an in-the-moment point of contact and reassurance  
  • One day of volunteer time off per year and a donation-matching program  
  • Bi-weekly town halls and regular community-led team events  
  • Multiple resources and programming to support continuous learning
  • A workplace that supports a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment – learn more here 

Equal employment opportunity

At Index Exchange, we believe that successful products are built by teams just as diverse as the audience who uses them. As such, we are committed to equal employment opportunities. We celebrate diversity of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or expression, or veteran status. Additionally, we realize that diversity is deeper than any status or classification—diversity is the human experience. For those who show grit, passion, and humility—Index will welcome you.

Accessibility for applicants with disabilities

Index Exchange welcomes and encourages individuals with disabilities to apply to work with us. 

If you require an accommodation, please share the details of your request and any information how we can assist you with the hiring recruiter when they contact you. Index Exchange will make reasonable efforts to ensure accommodation requests are met throughout the recruitment process.

Index Everywhere, Index Anywhere

Our corporate headquarters are in Toronto, with major offices in New York, Montreal, Kitchener, London, San Francisco, and many other global cities. As a major global advertising exchange, we are committed to operating as a tightly knit global team and embracing and empowering talent wherever our colleagues may be. 

#LI-ONSITE 

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