Program Director

Program Director

Unissant, Inc. delivers innovative capabilities to the agencies that keep our nation healthy and safe. We apply our domain expertise, data acumen, and technology know-how to achieve breakthrough results for our clients. Working collaboratively, we advance missions and careers through a focus on honesty, integrity, and dependability. We continuously look for talent excited to join that effort. To learn more about our exciting organization, please visit us at

We are seeking a Program Director to join our team and support our government client on a large, multi-year IT services program.

The Program Director holds executive accountability for overall program performance, strategic alignment with the client, contract and budget governance, stakeholder escalation, and delivery health across all program work streams. This individual will provide leadership across platform, cloud, security, data operations, analytics and reporting, AI-enabled capabilities, external integrations and APIs, user support, and change-management functions.

The ideal candidate is an accomplished federal IT services leader with extensive experience managing large, complex, multi-team programs. The successful candidate will bring strong executive-level client engagement, contract and budget management, program transition, risk management, staffing, and delivery-governance expertise. They will be able to lead distributed teams, resolve complex stakeholder issues, maintain continuity of critical services, and ensure that all program activities remain aligned with client mission priorities and contract objectives.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Hold executive accountability for overall program performance, delivery health, and achievement of contract objectives across all program work streams.
• Provide strategic leadership and oversight for platform, cloud, cybersecurity, data operations, analytics and reporting, AI-enabled capabilities, integrations and APIs, user support, and change-management activities.
• Serve as the primary point of strategic alignment and executive engagement with client leadership, government contract representatives, and key program stakeholders.
• Build and maintain trusted relationships with client leadership and ensure program activities, priorities, risks, and decisions remain aligned with client mission needs.
• Own contract governance, including compliance with contractual requirements, deliverables, service levels, reporting obligations, and performance expectations.
• Lead budget governance, including cost management, financial tracking, resource planning, forecasting, and reporting on program financial health.
• Provide accurate, timely, and transparent reporting to client stakeholders regarding program progress, performance, risks, issues, financial status, milestones, and corrective actions.
• Establish and maintain program governance structures, decision-making processes, risk-management practices, escalation paths, and executive reporting mechanisms.
• Provide stakeholder escalation management and issue resolution across a multi-team delivery structure.
• Coordinate with cross-functional leaders spanning agile delivery, product management, engineering, enterprise architecture, cloud, cybersecurity, data, analytics, AI/ML, and user support.
• Lead resolution of complex program, delivery, technical, staffing, contract, and stakeholder issues that may affect performance, schedule, quality, cost, or client satisfaction.
• Lead transition-in activities to ensure production continuity and a successful assumption of program responsibilities.
• Validate inherited services, operational processes, technical artifacts, documentation, staffing plans, risks, dependencies, and program commitments during the transition period.
• Establish clear governance, decision-making, communications, escalation, and operational processes before steady-state program performance begins.
• Ensure the staffing plan and delivery model provide appropriate coverage across all work streams and contract requirements.
• Oversee workforce planning, recruiting coordination, onboarding, retention, succession planning, backfill planning, and continuity planning for critical program roles.
• Ensure delivery teams have the appropriate staffing, skills, tools, access, processes, and support necessary to meet client requirements.
• Foster a collaborative delivery culture in which client and contractor personnel share backlogs, agile ceremonies, planning activities, knowledge repositories, and documentation spaces.
• Encourage transparent communication, shared accountability, continuous improvement, and effective collaboration across government and contractor teams.
• Coordinate program performance measurement and reporting.
• Ensure performance measures reflect meaningful mission outcomes, service health, customer experience, quality, delivery predictability, operational readiness, and risk management rather than activity alone.
• Monitor delivery performance, identify emerging risks and performance gaps, and implement corrective actions as needed.
• Support development and refinement of program roadmaps, delivery plans, transition plans, strategic priorities, and continuous-improvement initiatives.
• Communicate program status, strategic recommendations, risks, decisions, and performance outcomes clearly to executive and operational stakeholders.
• Ensure all program work is performed in accordance with Unissant policies, client requirements, contractual obligations, security requirements, and applicable federal standards.

Work Experience and Job Skills

• Demonstrated experience serving as a Program Director, Program Manager, or comparable executive program leader on a federal IT services program supporting 80 or more FTEs.
• Proven record of successfully managing large, complex, multi-year federal IT services programs with multiple work streams, delivery teams, and stakeholder organizations.
• Demonstrated experience with contract governance, contract compliance, budget management, cost control, resource planning, financial reporting, forecasting, and executive-level program reporting.
• Proven ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships with federal client leadership, contracting officer representatives, program managers, technical stakeholders, and executive sponsors.
• Experience leading or overseeing multi-team delivery organizations supporting production cloud platforms, cloud security, enterprise data platforms, analytics and reporting capabilities, and/or AI-enabled services.
• Experience managing program risks, issues, dependencies, corrective actions, performance metrics, service levels, and escalation processes.
• Working familiarity with Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) program-level practices and ceremonies, including Program Increment planning, cross-team coordination, backlog alignment, planning events, and delivery reviews.
• Experience supporting agile, hybrid agile, and DevSecOps delivery approaches in a complex federal IT environment.
• Experience leading federal contract transition-in and/or transition-out activities.
• Experience ensuring service continuity, validating inherited environments and artifacts, establishing operational processes, and managing transition risks.
• Demonstrated ability to lead, influence, and coordinate cross-functional teams comprising program management, agile delivery, product, engineering, architecture, cloud, cybersecurity, data, analytics, AI/ML, and user-support personnel.
• Experience developing staffing plans, workforce plans, hiring strategies, backfill plans, succession plans, and continuity plans for critical roles.
• Strong executive communication, negotiation, relationship-building, problem-solving, conflict-resolution, and decision-making skills.
• Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, remote, and distributed delivery environment.
• Prior experience supporting government client programs in a comparable mission or technical domain is preferred.
• Experience with cloud data platforms, data governance, AI governance, analytics platforms, and/or AI-enabled services in a regulated federal environment is preferred.
• Experience managing a Contractor Team Arrangement, prime contractor and subcontractor team structure, or multi-vendor delivery environment is preferred.

Education

• Bachelor's Degree is required.
• Preferred fields of study include Business Administration, Program Management, Information Technology, Information Systems, Computer Science, Engineering, Operations Management, or a related field of study.
• MBA or Master's Degree in a relevant field of study is preferred.
• Equivalent combinations of education, certifications, and relevant professional experience may be considered, where permitted by contract requirements.

Certificates, Licenses and Registrations

• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is strongly preferred.
• Program Management Professional (PgMP), PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP), SAFe Program Consultant, SAFe Release Train Engineer, Certified ScrumMaster, or comparable program management and agile delivery certifications are preferred.
• Relevant cloud, cybersecurity, data management, IT service management, or federal program management certifications are preferred.

Communication Skills

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to present program performance, contract status, financial information, delivery risks, strategic recommendations, transition plans, and corrective actions to stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
• Ability to communicate effectively with executive leadership, government clients, contracting officials, technical teams, subcontractor partners, and non-technical stakeholders.
• Ability to develop clear, concise, well-organized program documentation, status reports, executive briefings, risk registers,