Program Manager, ISV Program Development - GM Defense

Description

Hybrid: This role is categorized as hybrid . This means the successful candidate is expected to report to Global Technical Center in Warren, Michigan three times per week, at minimum, or other frequency dictated by the business with periodic travel to Concord, NC and customer locations.

About GM Defense:

GM Defense is driving the future of military mobility by leveraging the best-in-class capabilities of General Motors for unmatched innovation, proven performance and breakthrough life-cycle economics! We deliver reliable, affordable, and innovative products across a full spectrum of capabilities – integrated vehicles, power and propulsion, autonomy, mobility, and security!

GM Defense is seeking a highly motivated, dynamic individual looking for an opportunity that will allow them to showcase their talents and have an impact in a strategic growth area. Our ideal candidate thrives in ambiguity and demonstrates problem-solving leadership with limited oversight!

The Role:

The Program Manager – Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) Process Excellence, Automation, and Program Development owns the management system that enables consistent, efficient, and data-driven execution across the ISV portfolio. This role turns complex program requirements into standardized processes, clearly defined work products, repeatable governance, and practical digital tools that improve execution across contracts, engineering, manufacturing, sustainment, finance, and customer engagement.

The position leads the full lifecycle of ISV process and work-product development: identifying needs and pain points; defining requirements and standard methods; creating templates, playbooks, workflows, dashboards, and other reusable products; piloting and validating solutions; driving adoption; and measuring sustained performance. The role is also responsible for identifying and implementing automation and AI-enabled solutions that reduce manual effort, improve data quality, accelerate analysis, strengthen decision support, and enable more effective product-development and program-execution practices.

Core responsibilities include standardizing program-management processes; integrating contract deliverables and Integrated Master Schedules (IMS); leading cost-account structure creation and maintenance; developing analytical studies and AI-enabled decision-support products; and ensuring that approved methods and tools are embedded into daily execution. The Program Manager also provides direct supervisory leadership to 2–3 Assistant Program Managers, setting priorities, developing team capability, and maintaining consistent execution across assigned resources.

What You'll Do

Portfolio Integration and Baseline Management

Serve as the integration lead across ISV contracts, variants, work directives, and program-management workstreams.

Maintain a consolidated view of technical, schedule, financial, and contractual baselines, including the relationships and trade-offs among them.

Assess the effect of scope, configuration, schedule, resource, and funding changes on the broader ISV portfolio.

Translate contractual requirements into executable plans in partnership with Contracts, Finance, Engineering, Manufacturing, Integrated Product Support, Quality, Supply Chain, and Business Development.

Identify cross-functional dependencies, constraints, and decision points early enough to protect program commitments.

Process Excellence, Work-Product Standardization, and Governance

Define, document, standardize, and maintain end-to-end operating processes for core ISV program-management activities, including contract-change flow, CDRL development and review, IMS updates, risk and issue management, cost-account setup, decision forums, and customer reviews.

Own the development and lifecycle management of reusable work products, including SOPs, process maps, RACI charts, templates, checklists, dashboards, decision briefs, study charters, reporting packs, and training materials.

Establish clear quality standards, entry and exit criteria, ownership models, version control, and approval paths for critical ISV work products.

Convert lessons learned and recurring execution issues into improved standards, updated tools, and practical guidance that teams can apply consistently.

Monitor adoption, compliance, cycle time, quality, and rework; identify gaps and bottlenecks; and lead corrective actions through closure.

Establish a sustainable governance cadence to review, approve, communicate, and continuously improve processes and work products as contracts, tools, organizational responsibilities, and customer expectations evolve.

Automation, AI Enablement, and Product Development

Systematically identify high-friction, manual, repetitive, data-intensive, or error-prone activities in ISV program execution and product-development workflows.

Evaluate opportunities to simplify, standardize, automate, or augment work using SharePoint, Power Platform, dashboards, templates, macros, scripts, workflow tools, generative AI, machine learning, and other appropriate technologies.

Lead the development and implementation of AI-based product-development and program-execution solutions, such as requirements analysis, knowledge retrieval, engineering-content comparison, trade-study support, schedule and risk analysis, configuration-change impact assessment, predictive insights, and automated reporting.

Define use cases, data requirements, controls, human-in-the-loop reviews, test cases, acceptance criteria, and responsible-use practices for automation and AI solutions.

Partner with Engineering, Manufacturing, IPS, Quality, Supply Chain, Finance, IT, data teams, and tool owners to prototype, validate, deploy, and sustain solutions.

Translate user needs into practical product requirements, workflow designs, minimum viable products, adoption plans, training materials, and support processes.

Establish baseline and post-implementation measures for cycle time, error rate, touch time, quality, adoption, decision speed, and realized benefits.

Build a prioritized automation and AI opportunity backlog, manage delivery roadmaps, and ensure solutions become standardized work rather than isolated pilots.

Cost-Account Structure and Financial Integration

Lead the creation and maintenance of cost-account structures for ISV integration activities in close collaboration with Program Finance, Controllership, and Contracts.

Facilitate working sessions to structure new work in accordance with MIL-STD-881 and applicable internal GPN/WBS standards.

Ensure traceability among contract scope, work breakdown structures, cost accounts, charging structures, authorized personnel, and reporting requirements.

Prepare and submit GPN/WBS requests, track approvals, resolve issues, and maintain current reference tools such as ISV GPN guides, PEG/WBS masters, and project lists.

Coordinate with Finance to ensure structures support accurate reporting, invoicing, forecasting, cost control, and audit readiness.

Identify and correct misalignment between authorized work, charge lines, organizational ownership, and program baselines.

Contract Deliverables, CDRLs, and Integrated Master Schedules

Own the contract-deliverables integration plan and ensure CDRLs, technical products, and program artifacts are connected to the appropriate IMS tasks.

Confirm that deliverables are properly scoped, resourced, sequenced, reviewed, and aligned to customer and internal milestones.

Oversee CDRL development, internal review, approval, status tracking, and submission while improving visibility through workflow automation where practical.

Establish performance reporting for deliverables, including on-time, late, at-risk, aging, and recovery-plan status.

Partner with the IMS lead to maintain a high-quality, resource-informed schedule that reflects current scope, approved changes, dependencies, risks, and constraints.

Lead recurring reviews of IMS and deliverable health, elevate conflicts and decision points, and drive closure of recovery actions.

People Leadership and Team Development

Provide day-to-day supervision, work prioritization, coaching, and performance support for 2–3 Assistant Program Managers.

Establish clear assignments, ownership, priorities, and escalation paths across ISV integration activities.

Build team capability in structured program management, data-driven decision support, process discipline, and customer-facing communication.

Ensure effective coverage of portfolio priorities and consistent execution of program-management standards.

Studies and Decision Support

Plan and execute trade studies and analytical projects that inform future engineering content, production strategies, sustainment concepts, business cases, and investment decisions for the ISV vehicle family.

Develop study charters that define the problem statement, objectives, scope, assumptions, alternatives, evaluation criteria, stakeholders, and timeline.

Coordinate analyses across Engineering, Manufacturing, Integrated Product Support, Quality, Supply Chain, Finance, Contracts, and Business Development.

Develop data-backed recommendations, scenario comparisons, cost and schedule impacts, and sensitivity analyses for internal leadership reviews and customer engagements.

Translate decisions into accountable actions and ensure resulting changes are incorporated into contracts, baselines, schedules, budgets, and execution plans.

Stakeholder Communication, Risk, and Change Management

Serve as a primary integration point for ISV leadership and provide concise, structured updates on process health, automation progress, IMS status, deliverables, financial structures, and active studies.

Facilitate recurring risk, issue, and opportunity reviews; ensure items are documented, assessed, assigned, mitigated, and linked to affected scope, schedule, cost, and deliverables.

Coordinate change management across the ISV portfolio, including contract modifications, configuration changes, baseline updates, process changes, and organizational handoffs.

Prepare and deliver clear materials for internal program reviews, Army reviews, and senior GM Defense forums.

Build trust across functional and customer communities by making complex information understandable, decisions actionable, and commitments visible.

Your Skills and Abilities (Required Qualifications)

Bachelor’s degree required.

Candidate must be a U.S. Person (U.S. citizen, U.S. permanent resident, asylee or refugee).

U.S. citizenship required to comply with federal government contract provision expressly restricting role to U.S. citizens.

8+ years of relevant experience.

Proficiency in program or project management, preferably in automotive, aerospace, defense, or a similarly complex product environment.

Demonstrated experience leading integrated schedules, contract deliverables, cross-functional teams, and execution planning on multi-year programs.

Strong working knowledge of structured program-management practices, including work breakdown structures, integrated master schedules, risk and issue management, baseline change control, and cross-functional dependency management and cost accounting.

Experience translating contractual or customer requirements into standardized processes, executable plans, defined work products, milestones, and ownership structures.

Demonstrated experience creating and implementing standards, templates, governance mechanisms, dashboards, or other reusable program-management products.

Proficiency with Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint and with Microsoft Project or an equivalent scheduling tool.

Ability to evaluate and apply automation, data, and AI-enabled tools to improve program execution or complex product-development workflows.

Experience synthesizing complex technical, financial, schedule, and contractual information into clear narratives for leadership, customers, and functional teams.

Demonstrated ability to prioritize competing demands, influence without direct authority, drive closure, and operate effectively in a fast-paced, highly collaborative environment.

What Will Give You a Competitive Advantage (Preferred Qualification)

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business, Systems Management, Program Management, or a related discipline.

Master’s degree in Engineering, Business Administration, Systems Engineering, Program Management, or a related technical discipline.

Direct experience supporting U.S. Department of Defense programs, including CDRLs, IMS expectations, customer reviews, and MIL-STD-881 or similar standards.

Experience with light tactical vehicles, ground combat systems, or other military vehicle programs.

Hands-on experience designing, documenting, standardizing, and automating business processes using SharePoint, Power Platform, scripting, macros, workflow tools, or similar technologies.

Experience developing or deploying AI-enabled solutions for engineering, product development, operations, knowledge management, analytics, or decision support.

Experience with product-management practices for digital tools, including user discovery, requirements definition, prototyping, validation, rollout, adoption, and continuous improvement.

Experience with Earned Value Management, cost and schedule integration, or equivalent performance-management frameworks.

Experience supervising, mentoring, or developing program-management professionals.

Experience developing executive-level decision briefs, trade studies, business cases, or customer-facing recommendations.

Work Environment and Travel

Primarily on-site at the GM Global Technical Center – Knudsen Pre-Production Operations in Warren, Michigan, with flexibility consistent with GM Defense policy.

Periodic travel of less than 20% to production and supplier sites, test locations, Army installations, customer locations, and other GM Defense facilities to support reviews, field activities, and integration events.

Success Measures

Success in this role will be demonstrated through measurable improvement in portfolio execution and team effectiveness, including:

Clear, accurate, current, controlled, and adopted ISV process standards, governance materials, and operating rhythms.

Consistent use and quality of standardized ISV work products, including templates, SOPs, dashboards, decision briefs, schedules, deliverable packages, and study outputs.

Reduced cycle time, touch time, error rate, and rework for targeted internal processes through effective standardization, automation, and process improvement.

Successful implementation and sustained adoption of automation and AI-enabled solutions that improve product-development quality, decision speed, knowledge access, or execution efficiency.

Strong integrity and traceability across contract scope, cost-account structures, schedules, resources, and financial reporting.

Timely reflection of approved changes and risks in the IMS, baselines, deliverables, and execution plans.

On-time, high-quality delivery of contract deliverables and decision-support studies.

Actionable recommendations that improve engineering content, production planning, sustainment planning, investment decisions, or program profitability.

Effective supervision and development of Assistant Program Managers, including clear priorities, strong execution discipline, and growing team capability.

Positive feedback from ISV leadership, functional partners, and customers regarding integration, communication, issue anticipation, and disciplined execution.

#GMD

U.S. citizenship required pursuant to government contract.

GM does not provide immigration-related sponsorship for this role. Do not apply for this role if you will need GM immigration sponsorship now or in the future. This includes direct company sponsorship, entry of GM as the immigration employer of record on a government form, and any work authorization requiring a written submission or other immigration support from the company (e.g., H1-B, OPT, STEM OPT, CPT, TN, J-1, etc.)

This role is categorized as hybrid. This means the selected candidate is expected to report to a specific location at least 3 times a week {or other frequency dictated by their manager}.

The selected candidate will be required to travel <25% for this role.

This job is not eligible for relocation benefits. Any relocation costs would be the responsibility of the selected candidate.

The position is subject to export control restrictions and requires the successful candidate to be a U.S. Person (U.S. citizen, U.S. permanent resident, asylee or refugee)

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