Head of Technical Program Management - Banking

About the role

This role is responsible for overseeing the program management for Mercury's banking charter and governance initiatives. This involves managing the sequencing, dependencies, risks, and decisions across various teams including engineering, product, design, and data. A key part of the work is to ensure efficient cross-functional collaboration and to drive decisions through complex, ambiguous situations.

The Head of Technical Program Management will define the operational framework for the banking organization's TPM function, establishing rituals, tools, reporting mechanisms, and standards to streamline complex, cross-functional projects. This includes building automation to enhance program efficiency and quality, as well as creating executive-level reports and dashboards to provide clear insights into program progress and key metrics.

Success in this position means not only running individual programs effectively but also building and scaling the program management function itself. The role requires a leader who can challenge assumptions, pressure-test timelines with engineering and product leaders, and ensure the necessary auditability and documentation rigor for regulated work. The ability to build, manage, and develop a team of TPMs is also crucial.

The target base salary for US employees ranges from $242,700 to $337,100 USD, depending on geographic location, with specific ranges for major US cities and other US locations.

Skills that matter here

• program management: This role requires leading and defining the entire program for Mercury's bank charter and governance work.
• engineering: A technical background in engineering is preferred to understand architectural tradeoffs and work effectively with engineering leaders.
• product leadership: Experience in product leadership is valuable for collaborating with product teams and understanding their perspectives.
• regulated industries: Experience in regulated industries, especially fintech or banking, is necessary due to the nature of bank charter and governance work.
• communication: Exceptional communication skills are needed to influence stakeholders at all levels, from executives to individual contributors.
• building program management functions: The role requires a track record of establishing and scaling program management operating systems, not just executing individual programs.

Who this role suits

• Someone with a background in technical leadership, capable of engaging with architectural details and challenging assumptions.
• A leader who thrives in ambiguous environments and is adept at bringing clarity and structure to complex, cross-functional initiatives.
• An individual with a strong track record of building and scaling program management functions within regulated sectors.
• A highly influential communicator who can navigate executive, peer, and team-level interactions effectively.

From the employer

Responsibilities

• Own the program for Mercury's bank charter and governance work: the sequencing, dependencies, risks, and decisions across engineering, product, design, and data teams.
• Define the TPM operating system for the banking org: the rituals, tooling, reporting, and standards that make complex cross-functional work legible and fast.
• Build automation and agentic flows to run programs with efficiency and high quality.
• Build and run exec-level reporting, synthesizing a high volume of information into self-serve dashboards and crisp narratives about what matters most.
• Pressure-test timelines, sequencing, and estimates with engineering and product leaders, knowing when to challenge assumptions.
• Build, manage, and develop a team of TPMs while directly running select program areas.
• Drive decisions through ambiguity: clarify ownership, force tradeoffs into the open, and use productive conflict to get to the right answer.
• Operate with the auditability and documentation rigor that regulated, governance-heavy work demands.

Requirements

• 10+ years of program management, engineering, or product leadership experience, including 3+ years managing TPMs or PMs.
• A technical background, ideally engineering, technical program management or senior product, with the fluency to work through architecture-level tradeoffs, timelines, and estimates with engineering leaders.
• Experience in regulated industries; fintech or banking strongly preferred.
• A track record of building program management functions or operating systems, not just running individual programs.
• Exceptional communication and the ability to influence cross-functionally, up to execs, across to peers, and down to teams you don't manage.
• A solutions-first orientation: comfortable being dropped into ambiguity and known for leaving clarity behind.

Conditions

• The total rewards package at Mercury includes base salary, equity (stock options/RSUs), and benefits.
• Our salary and equity ranges are highly competitive within the SaaS and fintech industry and are updated regularly using the most reliable compensation survey data for our industry.
• New hire offers are made based on a candidate’s experience, expertise, geographic location, and internal pay equity relative to peers.
• Our target new hire base salary ranges for this role are the following:
• US employees in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, or the San Francisco Bay Area: $269,700 - $337,100 USD.
• US employees outside of New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, or the San Francisco Bay Area: $242,700 - $303,400 USD.
• Canadian employees (any location): CAD 254,900 - 347,800.