Project/Program Manager IT 5 (Lead Project Manager)

Project/Program Manager IT 5 (Lead Project Manager)

Location: Peoria, Chicago, IL or Dallas TX offices On-Site

Duration: 18 months

Typical task breakdown:

• Setting and attending meetings, managing Azure Dev Ops Features, running standups, creating communications and ensuring product managers are informed on status of project and any possible risks to deadline, delivery or quality of data.

Team Structure/Interaction with team:

• We are a team of 8 team members and growing with 3 distinct products Google Analytics, DIW/DBM (marketing and digital behavior data lake) and Hightouch (pipeline management and remarketing audience creation), We run the product management portion while we then also partner with architecture, solution design and engineering team for the execution portion of the product.

Work environment:

In Office 5x days a week

Education & Experience Required:

• Years of experience: 10+
• Degree requirement: Bachelors, PMP or PMI certification
• Do you accept internships as job experience: No

Top 3 Skills:

• Data Fluency: speak the language of data, understanding concepts like pipelines and data governance to effectively bridge the gap between technical teams and business.
• Change Management: excel at navigating organizational change, aligning diverse teams, and getting buy-in from team leads to ensure the project delivers value.
• Agile Planning: not tied to a rigid plan, instead using an agile approach to adapt to new challenges and deliver results in short, iterative cycles.

Additional Technical Skills:

(Required)

• The candidate must be proficient with Azure DevOps (ADO). This is a critical tool for our team's daily operations, including project planning, task management, and progress tracking. Without this skill, they will struggle to perform the core functions of the job effectively.

(Desired)

• It is highly beneficial for a candidate to understand key data architecture and engineering terminology. This allows for smoother communication with our technical teams and leads to more accurate project planning and risk assessment.
• Great notetaking skills are a valuable technical asset in this role. The ability to document decisions and action items clearly and concisely is crucial for maintaining project clarity and alignment across all workstreams.

Soft Skills:

(Required)

This person must have strong communication skills, able to translate technical details into clear business terms. They also need to be highly organized and proficient with our standard tools like Teams, ADO, and OneNote.

(Desired)

• The ideal candidate is a curious problem-solver who is flexible and can adapt to change. They should also possess strong negotiation skills to navigate competing priorities and secure buy-in.

Position's Contributions to Work Group:

• Orchestrating Cross-functional alignment
• Structuring and maintaining ADO and the project plan for the Data workstream and day to day digital intelligence activities
• Proactive risk management identification to ensure pilot can be moved to at scale with ease, and pilot does not miss due dates
• Effective communication with multiple levels of stakeholders and team members to ensure deadlines are met and team members are meeting tier responsibilities.

Reason/motivation for request:

• There is a need to add a new project management expert to our Digital Intelligence team for an industry leading, new pilot project along with project management of some additional day to day coordination of existing work. This resource will coordinate on behalf of the data workstream and overall digital intelligence team, between 10 different teams and must have a high level of expertise to get up to speed quickly and be detailed oriented and organized. They will be responsible for coordinating with our data teams from the product management side of the team, on tasks like data engineering, creating data pipelines, building consumable tables, enabling reporting, and creating target audiences.

Disqualifiers/Red Flags/Overqualifications:

• Poor Performance and Accountability: They have a track record of failing to meet project deadlines, staying within budget, or delivering on key project components like change management. They may also deflect blame for past failures.
• Lack of Core Skills: The candidate demonstrates poor communication skills, provides vague answers, or lacks a basic understanding of key data concepts needed for the role.
• Low Engagement and Motivation: They view the job as just a task, show signs of getting bored easily, and fail to demonstrate genuine engagement or a sense of teamwork.
• Choppy tenure: frequent job changes and 1+ year gaps between jobs.