Technical Program Manager, Emergency Cash at GiveDirectly

About this role

• GiveDirectly’s Emergency Cash team delivers rapid, technology-enabled cash assistance to people affected by crises. The Technical Program Manager (TPM), Emergency Cash will build, configure, and manage the technology used for those responses - including systems for data collection, verification, payments, and monitoring - and ensure they are reliable, replicable, and ready for rapid deployment.
• In this role, you’ll translate emergency response needs into actionable technical requirements, coordinate cross-functional teams during activations, and strengthen our global readiness by improving tools and surfacing technical gaps to inform the product and technology roadmap.
• The Emergency Cash team is a remote-first team built around trust, ownership, and flexibility. Because this role supports emergency responses, the TPM may need to provide surge capacity and work across multiple timezones during activations, in line with pre-established on-call schedules.
• This position is ideal for someone who thrives in fast-moving, ambiguous environments, can bridge the gap between technical teams and field realities, and is motivated to redefine how humanitarian responses leverage technology.

Reports to: Senior Product Manager, Solutioning, Emergency Cash

What You'll Do: 

 Lead Technical Program Delivery for Emergency Responses:

• Embed (remotely or on-site) with the emergency response team during activations to manage end-to-end technical program delivery - leading scoping, requirements gathering, system configuration and implementation, QA and testing, troubleshooting, and closeout.
• Collaborate with Product, Tech, Research, Engineering, Data, Payments, and Programs teams to ensure systems are aligned with programmatic objectives and work seamlessly in field conditions.
• Ensure all systems comply with GD’s standards for data protection, privacy, and financial controls.
• Manage technical training and onboarding for surge staff, collaborators, and local partners.

 Strengthen Rapid Response Technical Readiness:

• Maintain and improve technical documentation, deployment guides, and incident-response protocols to ensure consistency and speed in future responses.
• Partner with Programs and Engineering to develop product roadmaps and requirements, and prioritize and implement improvements that enhance emergency response scalability and reliability.
• Track and report on technical readiness metrics (e.g. uptime, deployment speed, integration failures, data quality, testing coverage).
• Lead and document technical design and implementation retrospectives, lessons learned and root cause analyses after each response to drive continuous improvement and contribute to product development strategies.
• Support technical assessments, evaluations, testing and adoption of new products and solutions that strengthen emergency response technical capabilities.

Drive Safety, Risk Management, and Systems Resilience:

• Support risk assessments for systems and data flows in high-risk operating environments.
• Identify and mitigate technical risks - including connectivity, data loss, device theft, fraud, system misuse - before and during activations.
• Contribute to incident reviews to improve our safety and resilience protocols.

What You'll Bring: 

Values & Core Competencies: 

• Exceptional alignment with GiveDirectly Values and active demonstration of our core competencies: emotional intelligence, problem solving, project management, follow-through, and fostering inclusivity. We welcome and strongly encourage applications from candidates who have personal or professional experience in the low-income and/or historically marginalized communities that we serve.

Professional Experience:

• 5+ years of professional experience; we welcome a wide range of relevant backgrounds (e.g. technical program management, product management, data analytics, software engineering, international development, emergency response, or management consulting).
• Experience managing timelines, operational risk, stakeholders, and complex deliverables across multiple workstreams.
• Proven ability to operate in fast-paced and ambiguous settings, exercising sound judgment to balance speed, risk, and quality.

Technical Skills: 

• Experience owning technical decisions when no predefined playbook exists, including evaluating novel technologies, system designs, and risks.
• Working proficiency with a programming or statistical language (e.g. Python, R, Matlab, Java, Apex) - this role involves building automation and business logic, but it is not an engineering or data science role.
• High attention to detail and strong instincts for analysis and validating data and code creatively and rigorously.
• Structured approach to problem-solving and a drive to uncover and fix root causes rather than surface-level issues.
• Ability to clearly communicate technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders across varied cultural, national, and social backgrounds.
• Fluency in English.
• Preferred, not required: Experience working with relational databases (e.g. SQL).
• Preferred, not required: Experience with data visualization.

Contextual Understanding: 

• Understanding, or interest in learning, how technology enables emergency response operations (e.g. CVA platforms, identity verification, data collection tools, payment systems, mobile apps).
• Preferred, not required: Experience working in humanitarian or emergency response contexts.
• Preferred, not required: Familiarity with humanitarian coordination systems (UN clusters, INGO networks) and donor expectations.