Technical Program Manager, IT & Security

About us

Kenect is a leading AI-powered texting and reputation management platform used by 10,000\+ dealerships and service businesses across North America. We help companies streamline communication, respond faster, and drive real revenue by converting their main business line into a text-enabled number and unifying messaging, reviews, payments, and customer conversations in one simple platform.

What sets Kenect apart from other communication tools is our deep industry expertise and seamless integrations with the systems dealers already use. Teams trust us because our technology is easy to adopt, built for real-world workflows, and delivers measurable improvements in speed, customer satisfaction, and operational efficiency.

We're a fast-growing, mission-driven team building technology that strengthens human connection in a digital-first world and we're just getting started

About This Role

We're looking for a Technical Program Manager with deep IT and Security experience to join our Program Management team, reporting to the Head of Program Management. This role will serve as the primary program manager for our IT and Security functions — driving delivery of infrastructure initiatives, security programs, compliance efforts, and internal tooling projects — while also flexing into other delivery teams across the engineering organization as priorities demand.

Our IT and Security teams are responsible for everything from corporate infrastructure and IT support to application security, vulnerability management, and compliance posture. As the company scales and our AI-powered platform handles increasingly sensitive customer data across 10,000\+ businesses, the complexity and importance of this work is growing fast. You'll be the person who keeps it organized, visible, and moving forward.

Beyond IT and Security, you'll pinch-hit as a program manager for adjacent delivery teams when additional capacity or coverage is needed — stepping into product areas like SaaS Platform, Reputation, Sales AI, Omni-channel Communications, Campaigns \& Conversion, AI Platform \& Agent Runtime, Service AI, Integrations \& APIs, or Data Platform \& Insights..

What You Will Be Doing

• IT \& Security Program Delivery (Primary)
• Own the program management of IT and Security initiatives end to end — including infrastructure upgrades, security tooling rollouts, access management programs, incident response readiness, and compliance-driven projects.
• Partner with the Sr. Manager of IT and the Sr. Security Analyst to build and maintain roadmaps, define milestones, track dependencies, and ensure timely delivery of security and IT programs.
• Drive security compliance initiatives (SOC 2, penetration testing cycles, vendor security assessments, policy development) by coordinating across Engineering, Legal, and external auditors.
• Manage vulnerability management program cadence — ensuring findings from security assessments and pen tests are triaged, prioritized, tracked through remediation, and reported to leadership.
• Coordinate IT support and infrastructure projects, including endpoint management, identity and access management (IAM), network architecture, SaaS application administration, and disaster recovery/business continuity planning.
• Facilitate cross-functional security reviews for new product features and integrations, ensuring security requirements are embedded into engineering delivery workflows rather than bolted on after the fact.
• Own and maintain the IT and Security project portfolio — providing leadership with clear visibility into status, risks, resource needs, and tradeoffs across all active initiatives.
• Support incident management processes, including coordination during security incidents, post-incident reviews, and tracking of remediation actions to closure.
• Help mature Kenect's IT and security governance practices — contributing to policy documentation, runbooks, onboarding/offboarding procedures, and security awareness initiatives.

Skills \& Qualifications

• 5\+ years of program or project management experience, with at least 2-3 years focused on IT operations, infrastructure, or security programs in a SaaS or software company.
• Working knowledge of security frameworks and compliance standards (SOC 2, ISO 27001, NIST, or similar) and experience driving audit and compliance programs.
• Solid understanding of IT infrastructure concepts — networking, endpoint management, IAM/SSO, SaaS administration, cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure), and disaster recovery.
• Familiarity with security operations — vulnerability management, penetration testing coordination, incident response, and risk assessment processes.
• Experience working directly with security analysts, IT engineers, and DevOps/DevX teams to deliver technical programs.
• Strong technical literacy beyond IT/Security — comfortable reading architecture diagrams, understanding API integrations, and following engineering discussions about backend/frontend tradeoffs, AI/ML, and data platform topics.
• Proven experience managing multiple concurrent workstreams across cross-functional teams (Engineering, Product, Design, IT, Security).
• Strong facilitation and communication skills — you can run a room (or a Zoom), write a clear status report, and keep things moving with minimal drama.
• Familiarity with agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, or hybrid approaches) and project management tools such as Jira, Linear, Asana, or similar.
• Ability to context-switch quickly and ramp up on new teams and domains without hand-holding.
• Driven, self-motivated, enthusiastic and with a "get things done" attitude.
• Experience working in a remote-first or distributed team environment.
• Bonus: Experience with DevOps or platform engineering workflows, CI/CD pipelines, or infrastructure-as-code concepts.
• Bonus: CISSP, CISM, Security\+, PMP, CSM, or SAFe certification

Our Company Values We Hope You Showcase

• See it, Solve it, Get it Done
• Build, Adapt, Win
• Unwavering Customer Obsession

What Kenect Offers!

• Health, Dental, Vision, Life \& Disability Insurance
• Your birthday is a paid day off
• Onsite gym
• Breakroom full of snacks and drinks
• Convenient location next to freeway entrance/exit

We believe in hiring self-motivated team members who can run alongside us without needing to be “managed” along the way. Yes, we have managers and 1:1s. Yes, we believe in giving open two-way feedback. We also believe in having team members that can run without the daily guidance that some companies prefer.

Kenect is an equal opportunity employer. We are an organization comprised of people of all kinds of backgrounds, and believe this mix is precisely what makes us strong. All employment decisions at Kenect are based on business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications without regard to race, color, religion or belief, family or parental status, or any other status protected under.