Who we are:
Motive empowers the people who run physical operations with tools to make their work safer, more productive, and more profitable. For the first time ever, safety, operations and finance teams can manage their drivers, vehicles, equipment, and fleet related spend in a single system. Combined with industry leading AI, the Motive platform gives you complete visibility and control, and significantly reduces manual workloads by automating and simplifying tasks.
Motive serves nearly 100,000 customers – from Fortune 500 enterprises to small businesses – across a wide range of industries, including transportation and logistics, construction, energy, field service, manufacturing, agriculture, food and beverage, retail, and the public sector.
Visit gomotive.com to learn more.
About the Role:
We are hiring a Lead Technical Program Manager (TPM) for our Device Software organization who will make an immediate, measurable impact as Motive accelerates toward our next growth milestone. In a pre-IPO environment where execution excellence and predictable delivery are paramount, you will serve as a force multiplier—bringing structure to complexity, visibility to ambiguity, and velocity to critical initiatives that directly influence our market position. You will play a pivotal role in ensuring Motive delivers high-quality, reliable embedded software to millions of deployed devices in the field, orchestrating seamlessly across firmware, hardware, cloud infrastructure, QA, product management, and field operations teams. You'll be expected to hit the ground running—immediately taking ownership of our most critical device software programs, establishing trust with senior leadership, and demonstrating tangible improvements in delivery predictability within your first 90 days. Your impact will be measured not just in on-time deliveries, but in your ability to elevate cross-functional collaboration, reduce time-to-market, improve software quality metrics, and build scalable processes that support our aggressive growth trajectory without adding unnecessary overhead.
What You’ll Do:
- Build and maintain formal project plans including schedules, deliverables, and cross-team dependencies—spanning internal engineering teams and external partners.
- Facilitate structured phase reviews to ensure each development stage is complete and ready for the next.
- Monitor program execution, escalate risks early, and provide clear, ongoing status updates to leadership.
- Drive strategies to reduce schedule risk and technical uncertainty across firmware, embedded software, and systems integration programs.
- Validate test strategies and ensure end-to-end testing is completed successfully before release.
- Coordinate quick, cross-functional resolution when issues arise during development or validation.
- Coach engineers, Product Managers, and technical leads on effective program execution processes.
- Champion Agile methodologies, continuous improvement, and scalable, repeatable engineering workflows.
What We’re Looking For:
- 8+ years in Technical Program Management, Engineering Management, or Systems Engineering.
- Deep experience with embedded systems, firmware, IoT devices, or hardware–software integrated products.
- A proven ability to lead large-scale, multi-stakeholder programs across global teams.
- Ability to dive into technical details—debugging, architecture, system design—while maintaining strategic oversight.
- Exceptional communication, influence, and executive-ready reporting skills.
- Experience with program governance, risk mitigation, and structured decision-making.
- Proven success operating in fast-paced, rapidly evolving environments.
- Experience with fleet-scale IoT systems, consumer electronics, automotive, or similar domains.
- Knowledge of connectivity stacks (Wi-Fi, BLE, LTE/5G), OTA update systems, device provisioning, and security.
- Familiarity with manufacturing software lifecycles, including factory tools, component EOL, and sustaining engineering.
- Experience shaping roadmaps, establishing processes, and scaling engineering or TPM organizations.
- Proficiency with Agile/Scrum, release trains, and hybrid hardware + software development workflows.
This position is not remote. It will require 2 days per week in our San Francisco, CA office.
Pay Transparency
Your compensation may be based on several factors, including education, work experience, and certifications. For certain roles, total compensation may include restricted stock units. Motive offers benefits including health, pharmacy, optical and dental care benefits, paid time off, sick time off, short term and long term disability coverage, life insurance as well as 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). Learn more about our benefits by visiting Motive Perks & Benefits.
The compensation range for this position will depend on where you reside. For this role, the compensation range is:
Creating a diverse and inclusive workplace is one of Motive's core values. We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives.
Please review our Candidate Privacy Notice here.
UK Candidate Privacy Notice here.
The applicant must be authorized to receive and access those commodities and technologies controlled under U.S. Export Administration Regulations. It is Motive's policy to require that employees be authorized to receive access to Motive products and technology.
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Motive San Francisco, California, USA Office
Our headquarters are located in the heart of the city’s bustling South of Market (SOMA) neighborhood, a short walk from major public transit lines.
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