Project Program Associate Director

Req ID: 385703

NTT DATA strives to hire exceptional, innovative and passionate individuals who want to grow with us. If you want to be part of an inclusive, adaptable, and forward-thinking organization, apply now.

We are currently seeking a Project Program Associate Director to join our team in worcester, Massachusetts (US-MA), United States (US).

We are seeking an experienced and highly organized  Program Manager for this hybrid role in Worcester, MA to lead and oversee production support operations across multiple applications, platforms, vendors, and cross-functional teams. This role will be responsible for driving operational excellence through incident management, SLA compliance, security and risk mitigation, technical debt governance, metrics reporting, client engagement, and end-to-end coordination among internal and external stakeholders.

The ideal candidate will serve as the primary operational leader, ensuring system stability, service reliability, continuous improvement, and effective communication between business stakeholders, technology teams, and third-party vendors.

Candidates MUST live within a commutible distance to Worcester, MA to be considered.

Key Responsibilities:

Production Support & Incident Management

• Lead production support operations across multiple applications and services.
• Establish and manage incident management processes, ensuring timely triage, escalation, resolution, and communication.
• Drive Major Incident Management (MIM) activities and coordinate war room sessions during critical outages.
• Conduct root cause analysis (RCA) reviews and track corrective and preventive actions.
• Monitor incident trends and identify improvement opportunities to reduce recurring issues.
• Ensure adherence to operational support procedures and best practices.

Service Level Agreement (SLA) Management

• Define, monitor, and govern operational SLAs, OLAs, and KPIs.
• Track service performance against agreed targets and drive remediation plans for SLA breaches.
• Develop and implement service improvement plans to enhance customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
• Provide regular SLA performance reports to leadership and clients.

Technical Debt Management

• Establish governance processes for identification and prioritization of technical debt.
• Partner with engineering and architecture teams to create remediation roadmaps.
• Track technical debt backlog and ensure alignment with business priorities.
• Drive continuous improvements to system stability, maintainability, and performance.

Security Vulnerability & Risk Management

• Coordinate vulnerability assessment, remediation, and compliance activities across application and infrastructure teams.
• Track security findings from scans, audits, and assessments.
• Ensure timely resolution of critical and high-risk vulnerabilities.
• Collaborate with cybersecurity teams to support compliance, audit readiness, and risk mitigation initiatives.
• Monitor operational risks and develop mitigation strategies.

Metrics, Reporting & Governance

• Define and maintain operational dashboards and executive-level reporting.
• Analyze performance metrics including:
• Incident volumes
• Mean Time to Acknowledge (MTTA)
• Mean Time to Resolve (MTTR)
• SLA adherence
• Availability and uptime
• Technical debt reduction
• Vulnerability remediation status
• Release quality metrics
• Present operational insights and recommendations to leadership.
• Establish governance routines, review meetings, and performance tracking mechanisms.

Client & Stakeholder Management

• Act as the primary point of contact for operational and production support matters.
• Build strong relationships with business stakeholders and clients.
• Communicate service health, risks, escalations, and improvement initiatives.
• Facilitate regular operational reviews and executive status meetings.
• Manage customer expectations and drive issue resolution to completion.

Cross-Team & Vendor Coordination

• Coordinate activities across development, infrastructure, security, QA, DevOps, and support teams.
• Manage relationships with third-party vendors and managed service providers.
• Ensure vendor accountability for service commitments and deliverables.
• Lead cross-functional dependencies and facilitate issue resolution across organizational boundaries.
• Drive alignment among geographically distributed and matrixed teams.

Continuous Improvement & Operational Excellence

• Identify process improvement opportunities and implement best practices.
• Support automation initiatives that improve service reliability and operational efficiency.
• Drive ITIL-aligned service management practices.
• Lead post-incident reviews and ensure lessons learned are incorporated into future processes.
• Foster a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and customer focus.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, or related field

• 8+ years of experience in IT Program Management, Service Delivery, Production Support, Operations Management, or related technology leadership roles.

• 5+ years of experience leading large-scale production support environments, including incident, problem, and change management processes.

• 5+ years of experience managing cross-functional teams, third-party vendors, and geographically distributed stakeholders.

• 3+ years of experience developing and reporting operational metrics, KPI dashboards, SLA performance metrics, and executive-level communications.

Additional Required Qualifications:

• Candidates MUST live within a commutible distance to Worcester, MA to be considered.

• Demonstrated experience supporting application environments, cloud platforms, infrastructure services, and software delivery lifecycle process

• Demonstrated experience driving operational governance, service improvement initiatives, risk mitigation, and stakeholder engagement

• Strong verbal and written communication skills with the ability to influence technical and business stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications:

• ITIL Foundation or ITIL Managing Professional certification.
• Experience with Agile, Scrum, DevOps, and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices.
• Familiarity with ServiceNow, AppDynamics, or other monitoring tools.
• Experience in regulated environments and security compliance frameworks.

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About NTT DATA

NTT DATA is a $30 billion business and technology services leader, serving 75% of the Fortune Global 100. We are committed to accelerating client success and positively impacting society through responsible innovation. We are one of the world's leading AI and digital infrastructure providers, with unmatched capabilities in enterprise-scale AI, cloud, security, connectivity, data centers and application services. our consulting and Industry solutions help organizations and society move confidently and sustainably into the digital future. As a Global Top Employer, we have experts in more than 50 countries. We also offer clients access to a robust ecosystem of innovation centers as well as established and start-up partners. NTT DATA is a part of NTT Group, which invests over $3 billion each year in R&D.

Where required by law, NTT DATA provides a reasonable range of compensation for specific roles. The starting pay range for this remote role is $106,575-$142,100. This range reflects the minimum and maximum target compensation for the position in the United States. Actual compensation will depend on a number of factors, including the candidate’s actual work location, relevant experience, technical skills, and other qualifications. This position may also be eligible for incentive compensation based on individual and/or company performance. This position is eligible for company benefits including medical, dental, and vision insurance with an employer contribution, flexible spending or health savings account, life and AD&D insurance, short and long term disability coverage, paid time off, employee assistance, participation in a 401k program with company match, and additional voluntary or legally-required benefits.

Whenever possible, we hire locally to NTT DATA offices or client sites. This ensures we can provide timely and effective support tailored to each client’s needs. While many positions offer remote or hybrid work options, these arrangements are subject to change based on client requirements. For employees near an NTT DATA office or client site, in-office attendance may be required for meetings or events, depending on business needs. At NTT DATA, we are committed to staying flexible and meeting the evolving needs of both our clients and employees. NTT DATA recruiters will never ask for payment or banking information and will only use @nttdata.com, @nttdatafed.com and @talent.nttdataservices.com email addresses. If you are requested to provide payment or disclose banking information, please submit a contact us form, 

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