Sr Technical Project Manager

Role Description

The Senior Project Manager (SPM) is responsible for working with a wide range of stakeholders to plan, schedule, execute, track, and deliver roadmap projects on-time, on-scope, and on-quality. The PM will partner with technical product management, engineering, QA, and business partners to identify and honor critical milestones, remove obstacles or risks that threaten a successful delivery, and to lead agile teams to completion of commitments.

• Chief promise keeper for achieving agreed upon milestones in committed projects/programs, as well as maintained software.
• Proactively identifies and removes impediments to ensure successful delivery of team commitments across a program.
• Actively monitors schedule compliance – i.e., enforcing and/or monitoring, and escalating when there is a potential issue across a program.
• Owns and drives issue resolution and risk mitigation across a program.
• Ensures teams/stakeholders focus on both intermediate milestones and end-to-end delivery of the user experience.
• Drives commitments to completion on-time, on-scope, and on-quality across one or more program.
• Facilitates the successful release of projects/programs (e.g. Go/No Go meetings, documented release plans, etc.).
• Monitors and drives tech ticket maintenance and resolution.
• Coaches and facilitates one or more scrum teams, and also leads other Project Managers.
• Champions agile methodologies throughout the development process.
• Ensures understanding of and execution of the SDLC.
• Monitors team progress and redirects as needed for success.
• Actively shields the team from distractions during the sprint.
• Monitors and nurtures the health/morale of team.
• Ensures all projects/programs are executed with excellence.
• Understands and tracks roadmap commitments after proper prioritization.
• Recognizes cross-project and cross-team interdependencies and communicates accordingly to expose and mitigate potential risks.
• Escalates issues across impacted projects and teams.
• Ensures the charter is complete, approved, and a living document to reflect the current state of a project/program.
• Establishes team norms that participants support.
• Maintains a precise and accurate decision log that is communicated to stakeholders to ensure visibility and traceability for key decisions.
• Executes successful kick-offs, iteration 0’s, and dependency resolution.
• Maintains project artifacts.
• Effectively communicates within and across teams to ensure successful collaboration.
• Demonstrates skills in leadership, negotiation, conflict management, communication, and critical thinking.
• Owns and manages communication plan for project.
• Adjusts communication style and delivery for team/audience.
• Diplomatically addresses issues with a wide variety of stakeholders.
• Works out dependency issues and escalates when necessary.
• Takes and shares accurate notes with the right level of detail for the intended audience.
• Owns agenda creation (establishing, circulating, and keeping refreshed), including appropriate attendee identification, invitation, and confirmation that required attendees can/do attend.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Technology, Computer Science or related field preferred. Advanced degree is a plus.
• In depth knowledge of software development and adoption, ideally in Ed Tech preferred.
• Project management experience required, demonstrated by a minimum of 5 years as Project Manager, managing a project timeline, resources, and scope in order to meet business requirements.
• Self-motivated and well-organized; able to prioritize tasks and work well under pressure.
• Outstanding oral and written communication skills required.
• Strong organizational, planning and prioritization skills required.
• Adequate product knowledge and understanding of markets/customers.
• Proven ability to build and lead strong teams, as well as other Project Managers.
• Experience building and scaling highly-engaged, high performing product teams in a fast-paced SaaS environment.
• Exceptional problem solving skills.
• History of building effective relationships at all levels.
• Ability to function successfully across matrix environments.
• Scrum master experience as a coach/facilitator and proficiency in an agile project management environment are required.
• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is a plus.
• Certified Scrum Master (CSM) certification is a plus.
• Experience in consulting, working with business partners, and external vendors utilizing both traditional and rapid/lightweight project management is desired.

Competencies

• Ability to work with cross-functional teams in an agile software development environment.
• Adept at leading dispersed team members across offices/time-zones.
• Adaptable to changes in business opportunities and priorities.
• Diplomatic in managing expectations, behaviors, and personalities.
• Ability to see the big picture of a project/program, as well as the detail necessary to drive its successful delivery.
• Comfort with driving issues and risks to resolution/mitigation.
• Resilience in proactively removing impediments to ensure successful delivery of team commitments.

Benefits

• The pay range for this position is between $80,000 - $130,000 annually, however, base pay offered may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and location.
• An annual bonus plan may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to a full range of medical and/or other benefits, depending on the position offered.