Technical Program Manager Jobs in San Francisco, USA

Looking for a technical program manager job in San Francisco (SF)? Choose from 163 open roles at 43 employers. Explore real salary data and skills breakdown across remote, hybrid and on-site roles.

163 Open roles
43 Companies hiring
257K Average salary

The market for Technical program managers in San Francisco

As of 23 September, 15 technical program manager roles are open in San Francisco at 9 employers. Of the roles that say how they work, 67% are remote or hybrid.

Among the technical program manager roles listed on the board for San Francisco, the majority sit at mid level, with roughly a fifth at lead level and a small minority at senior level. About a third of the openings are older postings, and roughly a quarter arrived within the past month, with the remainder spread across the past few weeks. Hiring is notably concentrated: most roles listed here come from a small number of employers rather than being spread evenly across the market. Skills mentioned most often in descriptions lean heavily toward AI and machine learning topics โ€” evaluation, large language models, and APIs each appear in a substantial share of postings, and GPU-related work is mentioned in roughly a quarter of them.

How recently the open roles were posted

This week 0
Last week 2
Two weeks ago 0
Three weeks ago 2
One to two months ago 4
Two to three months ago 2
Earlier 5

Figures are measured every Monday.

What do Technical program managers in San Francisco work on?

A technical program manager coordinates complex, cross-functional engineering efforts: setting milestones, managing dependencies, tracking risks and keeping multiple teams aligned toward shared delivery goals. The role sits between engineering leadership and product, requiring enough technical fluency to interrogate designs and unblock teams without writing production code day-to-day. In San Francisco, the concentration of AI-focused companies โ€” including large model developers, enterprise data platforms such as Databricks, and established enterprise software firms with headquarters in the city โ€” means that TPM work here often involves AI infrastructure, model deployment pipelines, or platform integrations. The proximity to research institutions across the Bay adds to a culture where TPMs regularly coordinate with applied research teams as well as product engineering.

Skills and experience employers ask for

Descriptions point toward a candidate who is comfortable working around modern AI systems: familiarity with large language models, APIs, and evaluation methodologies appears in a notable share of postings. GPU infrastructure and A/B testing also appear often enough to suggest they are practical, not peripheral, parts of the work. Prompt engineering and diffusion models appear in a smaller minority of descriptions, indicating that some roles extend into generative AI product development specifically.

Evaluation 20%
APIs 17%
GPUs 13%
LLMs 12%
Agents 11%
Azure 10%
AWS 9%
GCP 9%
SQL 9%
A/B testing 6%
Master's degree 6%
Go 6%

Technical Program Manager roles that state a salary

The employers' own advertised ranges, for individual roles at different levels โ€” not an average and not a market rate.

San Francisco office, hybrid or remote?

Just over half of the roles that state a work mode on the board are hybrid, making that the most common arrangement. About a third are fully on-site, reflecting the weight of employers with established San Francisco offices. A small minority are listed as remote. Candidates should expect most opportunities to involve some regular in-person presence.

Make your application specific to the work

  1. Audit your cross-functional delivery experience TPM roles here frequently span AI infrastructure, model deployment, and platform work, so be ready to describe programmes you have managed that crossed engineering, research, and product boundaries.
  2. Brush up on AI and ML fundamentals Evaluation frameworks, LLM pipelines, and API integration appear in a large share of job descriptions, so being able to speak concretely about these areas will help you in screening conversations.
  3. Tailor applications to the employer's product area Hiring on the board is concentrated among relatively few companies, so research each employer's technical stack and current product focus before applying rather than sending a generic application.
  4. Prepare for a technical screen Even at mid level, San Francisco TPM interviews often include system design or programme planning exercises, so practise walking through dependency maps and risk mitigation for large engineering programmes.

Questions about Technical Program Manager jobs in San Francisco

A TPM typically runs programme rituals such as planning sessions and reviews, manages cross-team dependencies, tracks risks, unblocks engineers, and communicates status to leadership โ€” all without being the hands-on engineer writing the code.

A significant portion of the roles listed on the board for San Francisco mention AI-related skills such as LLMs, evaluation, and GPU infrastructure, which reflects the concentration of AI companies headquartered or operating in the city.

Among roles that state a preference, hybrid is the most common arrangement, followed by fully on-site. Remote roles represent a small minority, so most candidates should expect some in-person requirement.

Most of the roles listed on the board are at mid level. Lead-level openings make up a meaningful minority, while senior-level roles are relatively rare among current listings.

The board includes roles from AI model developers, enterprise data and cloud platform companies, and large enterprise software firms, several of which are headquartered in the city, including Anthropic, Databricks, and Salesforce.

Jobs checked 2 hours ago.