Senior Technical Program Manager, Engineering Operations

Get to Know Us

Horizon3.ai is a fast-growing, remote cybersecurity company dedicated to the mission of enabling organizations to proactively find and fix and verify exploitable attack vectors before criminals exploit them. Our flagship product, the NodeZeroTM platform, delivers production-safe autonomous pentests and other key assessment operations that scale across the largest internal, external, cloud, and hybrid cloud environments. NodeZero has been adopted by organizations of all sizes, from small educational institutions to government agencies and Global 100 enterprises. It is used by ITOps/SecOps teams, consulting pentesters, and MSSPs and MSPs.

We are a fusion of former U.S. Special Operations cyber operators, startup engineers, and formerly frustrated cybersecurity practitioners. We're committed to helping solve our common security problems: ineffective security tools, false positives resulting in alert fatigue, blind spots, "checkbox” security culture, cybersecurity skills shortage, and the long lead time and expense of hiring outside consultants. Collectively, we are a team of learn it alls, committed to a culture of respect, collaboration, ownership, and results.

About The Role

We're seeking an experienced Technical Program Manager to own and evolve our engineering operations infrastructure. This role combines hands-on operational leadership with strategic program management, requiring someone who can manage critical support operations while driving high-impact cross-functional initiatives that enhance our engineering organization's effectiveness.

Primary Responsibility: On-Call & Engineering Support Operations

You'll own the operational backbone of our engineering support systems with clear accountability and continuous improvement:

On-Call Program Management

• Design and operate the on-call framework: Establish and maintain staffing models, escalation procedures, and notification systems to ensure continuous engineering coverage for critical product issues
• Manage daily operations: Oversee on-call handovers, lead daily standups with assigned personnel, update customer-facing status pages where relevant, facilitate weekly handoff meetings, and ensure smooth transitions between rotations
• Central dispatch function: Act as the coordination hub for support requests and incident response, providing oversight and task prioritization for on-call engineers while adjusting work priorities based on SLA constraints
• Ensure equitable workload distribution: Monitor that low-priority tickets receive attention even when high-severity issues dominate, preventing backlog accumulation

Incident Response & Management

• Serve as Incident Commander for incidents during North American business hours:

• Alert and direct on-call staff during active incidents

• Coordinate real-time response efforts and ensure appropriate resources are engaged

• Update customer-facing status pages (status.horizon3.ai) throughout incidents

• Notify key business stakeholders of incident status and resolution progress

• Drive postmortem excellence: Lead postmortem meetings, lead the development of RCA (Root Cause Analysis) documentation, and most importantly, track and drive completion of follow-up action items to prevent recurring issues

Stakeholder Management

• Cross-functional collaboration: Partner with leaders and contributors across engineering and support organizations to ensure timely resolution of product issues with significant customer and partner impact

• Collaborate with delivery staff, peers, and management to identify and implement program improvements over time

• Enhance quantifiable metrics to assess the effectiveness of on-call. Collaborate to collect and report on these metrics.

• Identify routine requests and collaborate with on-call engineers to develop/refine TTPs and playbooks. Identify opportunities for improving technical support self-service capabilities.

• Monthly governance: Lead monthly review meetings with key stakeholders to assess program health, review metrics, and identify improvement opportunities

• Visibility and transparency: Maintain dashboards and tracking systems that give engineering leadership clear insight into on-call health, incident trends, support metrics, and SLA performance

Secondary Responsibility: Quarterly Strategic Initiatives

Beyond core operations, you'll program manage 1-2 cross-functional initiatives each quarter aligned with business objectives and engineering priorities. These may include infrastructure improvements, tooling rollouts, process transformations, or other strategic product engineering efforts.

What Success Looks Like

• On-call operations run smoothly with 24x5 coverage (progressing to 24x7), minimal escalations, and clear handovers
• Incident response times improve consistently, with high completion rates for postmortem action items
• Metric targets are met consistently, with healthy and appropriately prioritized support backlogs across teams
• Engineering and business stakeholders have clear visibility into operational health through effective dashboards and regular reporting
• On-call engineers have comprehensive playbooks and TTPs that reduce time-to-resolution for common issues
• Quarterly strategic initiatives are delivered on time with strong cross-functional collaboration
• Measurable reduction in recurring incidents and escalations over time

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of program or project management experience, with at least 3 years in a technical environment (software development, SaaS, or cybersecurity preferred)
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or related field (or equivalent experience)
• Strong facilitation skills for leading incident response as Incident Commander, postmortems, and cross-functional coordination meetings
• Excellent organizational skills with meticulous attention to follow-through on action items and commitments
• Experience building dashboards and tracking systems for engineering or operations metrics (familiarity with tools like Jira, Datadog, PagerDuty, or similar)
• Exceptional communication skills across all levels, especially when working with technical stakeholders and translating between technical and business contexts
• Ability to troubleshoot complex technical issues and make sound decisions under pressure during active incidents
• Experience operating independently in rapid-growth environments with evolving priorities

Preferred Qualifications

• PMP, ITIL, or similar program/project management certification
• Proven experience managing on-call operations or incident response programs in a production environment
• Experience with Agile/Scrum methodologies
• Background in SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) practices or DevOps culture
• Hands-on experience with incident management platforms (PagerDuty, Opsgenie, etc.) and ITSM tools
• Previous experience in a cybersecurity or security-focused technology company
• Familiarity with blameless postmortem culture and continuous improvement practices
• Experience developing SLA frameworks and measuring/reporting on operational metrics
• Track record of building technical documentation, playbooks, and self-service support resources

Work Environment

• Fully remote position with flexible hours
• Collaborative, fast-paced environment requiring both independent work and strong teamwork
• Must be able to respond quickly during critical incidents affecting customers and partners

Perks of Horizon3.ai

• Inclusive Team: We value diversity and promote an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive.
• Growth Opportunities: Be part of a dynamic and growing team with numerous career development opportunities.
• Innovative Culture: Work in a collaborative environment that encourages creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.
• Remote Work: We are a 100% remote company. Enjoy the convenience and work-life balance that comes with remote work.
• Competitive Compensation: We offer competitive salary, equity and benefits. Our benefits include health, vision & dental insurance for you and your family, a flexible vacation policy, and generous parental leave.

Compensation And Values

At Horizon3, we believe that our people are our greatest asset, and our compensation philosophy reflects this core value. We are committed to fostering an environment where all employees feel valued, respected, and rewarded for their contributions. Our compensation structure is designed to be fair, competitive, and transparent, ensuring that every team member is recognized and compensated equitably across roles, levels, and locations.

• Additional compensation: All full-time roles are eligible for an equity package in the form of stock options.

You Belong Here

Horizon3 is not just an equal opportunity employer - we are a community that values diversity, equity, and inclusion as fundamental principles of our culture and success. We are dedicated to fostering a workplace where everyone feels welcome and respected, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, or any other legally protected status by law.

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion means we strive to attract, develop, and retain a workforce that reflects the varied communities we serve. We believe that diverse perspectives drive innovation and strengthen our ability to create cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions. At Horizon3, every team member is valued and supported in an environment that encourages personal and professional growth.

We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and experiences, and we encourage all qualified individuals to apply. Come be a part of Horizon3, where your unique contributions are recognized, and your potential is limitless.

Other Duties

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.