Project Scheduler

IT Project Scheduler

Location: Middletown, PA Duration: 24+ Months Note: Hybrid work environment is expected to be primarily remote off-site with one week per month on-site in Middletown, PA; Position Summary: We are seeking a highly skilled, experienced Project Scheduler to join our team assisting the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) Information Technology (IT) Department on their exciting and innovative technology project called the Unified Back Office Solution (UBOS). UBOS is an advanced back-office system that, when developed and deployed, will allow customers to engage with the Commission to address all their business needs, via a multitude of channels (web, mobile app, chatbot, chat, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), phone, social media, etc.).

• Serve as a key contributor within the UBOS Program Management Office, supporting a complex Tolling Back Office program implementation using commercial off the shelf software.
• Develop, maintain, and report on detailed project and program schedules under the guidance of Program, Project Managers, and technical/functional leads.
• Work closely with project managers, technical leads, and cross-functional teams to ensure schedule accuracy, visibility, and timely communication of risks and impacts.
• Focus on execution-level scheduling, dependency tracking, and progress reporting using Microsoft Project.
• Develop, maintain, and update detailed project and program schedules using Microsoft Project, supporting multiple teams and workstreams, while referencing the detailed tasks in Microsoft ADO.
• Create and manage a fully resource-loaded schedule, incorporating labor resources, role-based assignments, and effort estimates across internal teams, contractors, and vendors.
• Support the integrated master schedule (IMS) by maintaining task logic, dependencies, milestones, and constraints across assigned projects.
• Coordinate with, and drive, project managers, team leads, and vendors to collect schedule updates and validate task status, forecasted date, resource allocations, availability, resource contention analysis, and forecast demand.
• Track progress against approved baselines and identify schedule variances.
• Perform basic critical path and dependency analysis to identify potential schedule risks and impacts.
• Escalate schedule risks, issues, and cross-team dependency conflicts to Program and Project Managers with clear impact summaries.
• Support change control activities by assessing schedule impacts related to scope changes, technical decisions, or resource constraints.
• Prepare routine schedule reports, milestone trackers, and status summaries for program leadership and governance forums.
• Drive schedule review meetings, planning sessions, and milestone readiness discussions.
• Ensure schedules align with PMO standards, delivery methodologies, and reporting requirements.
• Maintain schedule documentation and support auditability and traceability of schedule changes.
• Assist with continuous improvement of scheduling templates, standards, and practices within the PMO.
• Fully document all created work associated with this position, including impact analysis reports, lessons learned, best practices for others to follow, plus any other documentation as required by the Commission. This documentation shall follow the format and / or templates as instructed by the Commission.
• Develop and maintain a productive working relationship with technology staff, business owners, project sponsors, vendors, and key clients.
• Lead and participate in project team activities for planning efforts related to enterprise systems build.
• Work independently to accomplish the tasks and duties assigned.
• Adhere to and follow all Commission standards, policies, and procedures.
• Utilize various software and/or technology tools to perform job duties.
• Perform tasks and other duties as related to this position and role and assigned by the Commission.

Skills and Experience:

• 5+ Years: Experience supporting large scale IT Project or Program Schedules
• Demonstrated solid scheduling fundamentals, strong attention to detail, and effective collaboration across multiple teams
• Strong working knowledge of Microsoft Project and Microsoft Planner, including; Task breakdown and sequencing, Dependency and constraint management, Milestones and baseline tracking, Schedule updates and variance reporting, Resource loading, effort estimation, and capacity tracking
• Experience creating and maintaining resource-loaded schedules, coordinating labor assignments across multiple teams, roles, vendors, or system dependencies
• Ability to work with project managers and team leads to validate resource availability, workload balancing, and forecasted staffing needs
• Ability to manage and reconcile schedule inputs from multiple stakeholders
• Experience identifying schedule risks, dependency conflicts, and potential delivery impacts
• Ability to clearly communicate schedule concerns and risks to Project and Program Managers
• Familiarity with basic critical path concepts and schedule impact analysis
• Experience supporting IT initiatives such as software development, systems integration, or enterprise applications
• Support hybrid delivery models by aligning sprint-level planning with milestone-based tracking in Microsoft Project and backlog tools such as Azure DevOps
• Understanding of PMO processes, project lifecycle phases, and governance checkpoints
• Strong organizational and time-management skills
• Clear written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to work independently on assigned tasks while collaborating within a broader program team
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, multi-priority environment
• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Information Systems, Business Management, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience)
• Microsoft Project module training or certification is a plus
• PMP or PMI-Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP) certification is a plus
• ITIL Foundation certification is a plus
• Agile or SAFe fundamentals certification is a plus

Additional / Preferred Skillset:

• Experience planning and delivering Tolling, Transportation, Customer Service, Back Office systems, or public sector programs
• Exposure to working with system integrators or external vendors
• Familiarity with tools such as ServiceNow (Project/Demand), SharePoint, or similar collaboration/reporting tools
• Basic experience with schedule reporting dashboards or executive status reporting
• Exposure to Agile planning events (e.g., sprint planning, release planning, PI planning)
• Working knowledge of backlog tracking tools such as Azure DevOps (ADO), Jira, ALM, etc. and PowerBI