Our client, a leading education innovation company, is hiring a Program Manager on a contract basis.
Job ID: 81351
Work Location:
Columbus, OH (Remote Working Model)
Summary:
The Program Manager is responsible for the planning, scheduling, and tracking of programs within our Higher Education Business Unit. This role will partner with technical product management, architecture, engineering, and the business to provide leadership in delivering innovative digital solutions to our customers. This position will not only focus on the planning, communication, and coordination of large-scale software development programs but also beyond the end date to the transitional and operational elements. This role is accountable to sponsors for schedule and quality of all program elements. This role may also be accountable for platform level program leadership, including resolving risks, providing leadership to agile teams, and providing clear status and communications.
This is a remote position open to applicants authorized to work for any employer within the United States, preference will be given to candidates in the New York/New Jersey area. It may require up to 15% travel.
Responsibilities:
• Facilitates delivery of large cross-team programs by driving commitments to completion on time and with quality. Includes facilitating project initiation, tracking milestones, solving risks, and managing dependencies from development through testing and release. May own planning beyond software deliverables including managing customer testing and go-to-market planning.
• Ability to work out complex dependencies and escalate issues across impacted projects, programs, and teams up and down the chain as necessary.
• Can coordinate and organize vendor contracts, invoices, and execution.
• Can drive scaled agile planning and execution methodologies for teams or projects that require it.
• Partner closely with product and engineering leadership to provide guidance and leadership across multiple platform teams.
• Champion agile methodologies throughout the development process and adherence to the SDLC. Coach on agile practices within assigned programs.
• Ensures projects follow the SDLC including a prioritized backlog, documented delivery plan, iteration 0 and dependency identification.
• Own and manage communication plan across program. Can communicate clearly and articulately to both senior leadership and agile teams. Own status, reporting, and stakeholder communications.
• Organizes notes, action items risks and program documentation. Ensure all decisions and action items are logged and resolved.
• Ensure transparency and buy-in on key decisions. Proactively removes impediments to ensure successful delivery of team commitments. Drives issue resolution and risk mitigation.
• Ensures customer support is appropriately prioritized, and SLAs are honored.
• May act as coach to agile teams within the program. Ensure appropriate ceremonies occur with valuable outcomes. Drives continuous team improvement.
• Assists with Product Operations requests (rostering, metrics, reporting, etc).
Required Qualifications:
• In depth knowledge of software development and adoption.
• Agile project management experience required, demonstrated by a minimum of 5 years with progressively increasing responsibility including managing project timelines and scope to meet business requirements.
• Highly-proficient in JIRA, Confluence, and Smartsheet. Able to produce detailed JIRA dashboard and reports, and use Smartsheet to drive complex programs.
• Self-motivated and well-organized; able to prioritize tasks and work well under pressure.
• Ability to work with a wide group of stakeholders in a positive and collaborative manner.
• Ability to travel on occasion and work in Eastern time zone.
• Open style of communication to foster efficient flow of ideas and build consensus across the project.
• Cross-disciplinary understanding of product management, software development, and quality assurance.
• Flexible and adaptable to tools and ways of working.
• Demonstrated skills in leadership, negotiation, conflict management, collaboration, organizational and critical thinking.
• Capable of communicating with a wide audience of individuals.
• Growth mindset, adaptable, and open to change, with a positive attitude and interest in improving over time.
• Capable of influence in a matrix structure where authority may lie elsewhere.
Desired Qualifications:
• Certified Scrum Master (CSM) certification or PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) certification is a plus.
• Scaled agile experience and/or certification a plus.
• Familiarity with Teams and Slack a plus.
• Experience as a scrum master.
• Ed Tech experience.
Why work for this client?
• We firmly believe in the mission of educating students and helping them succeed.
• Our teams operate in a collaborative and safe environment where everyone’s input is valued, trusted, and respected.
• You’ll have opportunity for horizontal and vertical movement and growth throughout the organization, including clear career paths for your long term personal and professional growth. We hire good people rather than filling team vacancies or checking boxes for technical skillsets.
• We have a mindset of deliver value, not features we produce meaningful products and services for our students, teachers, administrators, and others that further our educational mission rather than focusing on just executing a JIRA ticket number.
Pay Rate: $50- $55 /hour W2