Senior Program Manager

Position Overview

Our client is seeking an experienced Program Manager to provide overall leadership, management, administration, staffing, quality oversight, and financial execution for a large-scale federal IT support contract serving the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

The Program Manager will oversee the USPTO Service Desk, Advanced Problem Resolution (APR), USPTO Contact Center (UCC), Executive Support, Equipment Request Fulfillment (ERF), and Knowledge Management functions. This individual will ensure successful contract performance, customer satisfaction, and compliance with contractual requirements, service-level agreements (SLAs), security standards, staffing commitments, quality-management processes, transition requirements, and continuity-of-operations plans.

The Program Manager will serve as the contractor’s principal point of contact for USPTO leadership, including the Contracting Officer (CO), Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR), Service Desk Operations Division leadership, Product Owners, and other Government stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

Contract Management and Leadership

• Direct and manage all contract operations across Service Desk, APR, UCC, Executive Support, ERF, and Knowledge Management functions.

• Serve as the contractor’s authorized representative with authority to commit corporate resources and make binding operational decisions.

• Provide executive leadership and guidance to team leads, supervisors, managers, and support personnel.

• Ensure all contractual requirements, performance objectives, deliverables, and staffing commitments are achieved.

• Lead contract kick-off activities, transition execution, operational governance meetings, and program reviews.

• Maintain effective communication with USPTO stakeholders and senior leadership.

• Identify and mitigate contractual, operational, staffing, financial, and performance risks.

Program and Workforce Oversight

• Manage staffing, recruitment, retention, workforce planning, and succession-planning activities.

• Ensure all key personnel and staffing requirements are filled within Performance Work Statement timelines.

• Monitor operational performance across all functional areas.

• Evaluate staffing forecasts, workload trends, ticket volumes, and call volumes to ensure SLA achievement.

• Approve and oversee surge-support activities during major incidents, deployments, releases, and other operational events.

• Coordinate contractor operations across primary and alternate Continuity of Operations locations.

• Lead geographically dispersed teams operating in onsite, remote, and hybrid environments.

Customer Experience and SLA Management

• Ensure achievement of all contractual SLAs and performance objectives.

• Analyze operational metrics, customer-satisfaction data, quality reviews, and trend reports.

• Develop and implement corrective-action plans when service levels fall below performance standards.

• Lead continuous-service-improvement initiatives across all supported functions.

• Champion customer-focused service delivery and operational excellence.

• Review and resolve customer complaints, escalations, major incidents, and recurring operational issues.

• Work with Government stakeholders to improve service quality, responsiveness, and end-user satisfaction.

Financial and Business Management

• Manage contract funding utilization, labor allocation, staffing forecasts, and operational expenditures.

• Align program resources with contractual priorities and workload requirements.

• Support purchasing plans and resource requirements.

• Review subcontractor performance and contractual compliance.

• Monitor financial and operational performance to support successful contract execution.

• Provide program status reports to company leadership and USPTO stakeholders.

Quality Management

• Oversee implementation and execution of the Quality Control Plan.

• Ensure quality reviews, ticket audits, call evaluations, and process assessments are performed consistently.

• Establish performance-improvement initiatives based on metrics and trend-analysis findings.

• Ensure compliance with standard operating procedures, knowledge-management requirements, and IT service-management best practices.

• Promote measurable continuous improvement throughout the program lifecycle.

• Maintain accountability for service quality across prime and subcontractor personnel.

Security and Compliance

• Ensure compliance with USPTO cybersecurity requirements, Authorization to Operate requirements, security policies, and applicable federal regulations.

• Support continuity of operations, disaster recovery, risk management, and contingency-planning activities.

• Oversee implementation of security-awareness, privacy, and regulatory-compliance requirements.

• Ensure contractor facilities maintain required operational and security standards.

• Coordinate responses to audits, inspections, assessments, and compliance reviews.

• Promote compliance with applicable NIST, FISMA, privacy, and federal IT security requirements.

Reporting and Governance

• Review and approve monthly, quarterly, and annual status reports.

• Oversee quality reports, trend-analysis reports, performance dashboards, and other contractual deliverables.

• Conduct Program Management Reviews and operational governance meetings.

• Participate in stakeholder meetings, executive briefings, and performance reviews.

• Provide strategic recommendations for operational enhancements and emerging-technology adoption.

• Ensure all Government reporting is accurate, complete, and delivered on time.

Innovation and Emerging Technology

• Partner with USPTO leadership to identify opportunities for operational improvement.

• Promote the responsible adoption of AI-enabled capabilities, including virtual agents, service-request summarization, automated knowledge management, and workflow optimization.

• Lead innovation initiatives that improve efficiency, customer experience, resiliency, and service quality.

• Evaluate emerging technologies for their potential to enhance federal IT service delivery.

Required Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Information Technology, Engineering, Business Administration, Management, or a related discipline.

• Additional relevant experience may be substituted for education on a year-for-year basis, consistent with contractual guidance.

Experience

• At least 15 years of progressively responsible experience managing large-scale IT operations, service desk, help desk, contact center, or end-user support environments.

• At least 10 years of experience leading large teams supporting enterprise IT operations.

• Experience managing multifunctional organizations that support service desk, contact center, account management, technical support, executive support, and related functions.

• Demonstrated experience managing federal government contracts or similarly regulated operating environments.

• Proven success leading geographically distributed operations and hybrid workforces.

• Experience managing operational performance within an SLA-driven service-delivery model.

• Strong experience with workforce management, resource planning, operational metrics, and service-delivery optimization.

• Experience managing continuity of operations and disaster-recovery programs.

• Knowledge of cybersecurity, NIST, FISMA, and federal IT compliance frameworks.

• Strong executive communication, briefing, and stakeholder-management skills.

Certification

• ITIL certification or equivalent demonstrated IT service-management experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Project Management Professional (PMP).

• HDI Support Center Director.

• HDI Support Center Manager.

• Lean Six Sigma Green Belt or higher.

• Certified ScrumMaster (CSM).

• Expert knowledge of ITIL-based service-management principles.

• Experience with ServiceNow, Salesforce, or similar enterprise service-management platforms.

• Experience supporting large federal agencies and mission-critical IT environments.

• Experience overseeing subcontractors and managing performance across multiple organizations.

• Experience implementing service automation, AI-enabled support capabilities, or digital-transformation initiatives.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Ability to lead large, geographically dispersed teams while maintaining exceptional customer satisfaction.

• Strong understanding of enterprise service desk, contact center, incident management, problem management, and knowledge-management operations.

• Ability to interpret contractual requirements and translate them into measurable operational objectives.

• Strong financial, organizational, analytical, and decision-making abilities.

• Ability to communicate complex operational and technical matters to senior executives and Government stakeholders.

• Demonstrated ability to manage competing priorities in a fast-paced, mission-critical environment.

• Strong commitment to accountability, service quality, continuous improvement, and customer-focused delivery.