Software Project Manager

Job Description

Job Description

Software Project Manager, Engineering Delivery

This role runs planning, tracking, and delivery for a software engineering group. You will own the day to day project rhythm, build and maintain the Smartsheet plans, track issues and progress, and keep work visible across the whole software organization. The core team sits in south central Washington along the Columbia River, with smaller groups on other continents, so working across time zones, cultures, and different working styles is a normal part of the week. The fit here is someone who has seen both sides of software delivery, either an engineer who moved into project or program management and kept the technical fluency, or a seasoned PM who has real credibility running software work.

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Responsibilities

• Act as the primary project manager for the software engineering team, owning planning, tracking, and delivery across every active software project.
• Build, maintain, and update project plans in Smartsheet so scope, timelines, and status stay visible to stakeholders and leadership.
• Track engineering work and issues in GitLab, then translate and report the relevant status into JIRA for corporate visibility and cross team alignment.
• Manage resource allocation across the software team so engineers are staffed appropriately and not overcommitted or split across too many things at once.
• Protect the team's focus by managing incoming requests, shielding engineers from unnecessary context switching, and keeping work intake on a clear and deliberate process.
• Work with engineering leads to set project priority and reassess it as things change.
• Recognize when a new request should be queued instead of started, and communicate that tradeoff clearly to management and stakeholders.
• Coordinate work and communication across distributed teams spanning multiple continents and time zones.
• Surface risks, blockers, and resourcing conflicts early and drive them to resolution before delivery dates slip.
• Facilitate team ceremonies and check ins as needed, including standups, sprint planning, and retrospectives, in a way that fits the team's existing GitLab based workflow.
• Keep communication steady and clear with engineering leadership and cross functional stakeholders on status, risk, and resourcing decisions.

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Required qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a technical field such as computer science, engineering, or information systems.
• Minimum of 5 years in project or program management, with a meaningful portion of that spent on software development projects.
• Experience with structured planning tools such as Smartsheet, Microsoft Project, Asana, Monday.com, or similar, and willingness to work in Smartsheet specifically.
• GitLab fluency with issues, boards, and milestones sufficient to track and report engineering work, or the ability to pick up a similar tool quickly such as JIRA, Azure DevOps, or Linear.
• Standard productivity and collaboration tools, Microsoft Office or Google Workspace, plus video conferencing suited to distributed teams.
• Experience managing resource allocation and prioritization across a team carrying multiple concurrent projects or competing demands.
• Experience working alongside software engineering teams and turning technical work into clear status, risk, and timeline updates for non technical stakeholders and leadership.
• Willingness and track record of pushing back on or renegotiating scope and timelines with stakeholders and leadership when priorities collide or capacity runs out.
• Ability to read, understand, and talk about software engineering work such as features, bugs, and technical dependencies without needing to write production code.
• Strong resource planning skills, including reading team capacity, spotting overallocation, and making or recommending the tradeoff.
• Ability to run a structured prioritization process, sequencing competing requests by value, urgency, and available capacity.
• Strong written communication for status updates, project documentation, and cross team reporting.

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Preferred qualifications

• Prior role as a software engineer or technical contributor before moving into project or program management.
• Day to day experience using GitLab issues, boards, and milestones as the engineering tracking tool.
• Experience managing or coordinating distributed or global teams across large time zone gaps.
• Experience at a company where team level tooling differs from corporate level tooling, and bridging visibility between the two.
• Worked in aerospace, defense, robotics, or another hardware adjacent software environment.
• PMP or an equivalent certification.
• CSM, SAFe, or a similar Agile or Scrum certification.
• Familiarity with Agile, Scrum, or other iterative development methods.
• Ability to flag technical risk or scope creep early without deep hands on engineering expertise.
• Experience setting up or improving project tracking workflows from scratch.
• Direct hands on Smartsheet experience.
• Microsoft Project experience, especially for candidates coming from more traditional PM environments.

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Work environment

Hybrid, roughly 80 percent onsite in south central Washington, with cross time zone coordination as a core part of the job. Travel runs around 5 percent, domestic and international, and can come up on short notice. The role involves sitting and working at a computer daily, reading screens, documents, and engineering drawings, carrying or lifting items up to 30 pounds, and walking through office and production areas including uneven surfaces. PPE requirements include safety shoes, safety glasses, hearing protection, respirators or masks, and gloves as required by the site. Steel toed shoes are required for shop floor visits, and hearing or eye protection may be required on the floor.

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What makes it interesting

You get in at the ground level of a new initiative at a large company, with room to shape how the work gets planned and tracked.

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This is a Permanent position based out of Bingen, WA.

The pay range for this position is $143000.00 - $229000.00/yr.

Individual compensation offered for this position within this range will depend on many factors, including qualifications, skills, relevant experience, job knowledge, geographic location, internal equity, and other pertinent job-related factors.

Relocation assistance is provided for qualified positions, along with a compensation and benefits package.

This is a fully onsite position in Bingen,WA.

This position is anticipated to close on Sep 11, 2026.

About Actalent

Actalent is a global leader in engineering and sciences services and talent solutions. We help visionary companies advance their engineering and science initiatives through access to specialized experts who drive scale, innovation and speed to market. With a network of almost 20,000 consultants and 5,000 clients across the U.S., Canada, Asia and Europe, Actalent serves many of the Fortune 500. We are proud to be an Engineering News-Record (ENR) Top 500 Design Firm for our engineering design services and a ClearlyRated Best of Staffing® winner for both client and talent service.

The company is an equal opportunity employer and will consider all applications withoutregard to race, sex, age, color, religion, national origin, veteran status, disability,sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information or any characteristic protectedby law.

If you would like to request a reasonable accommodation, such as the modification oradjustment of the job application process or interviewing process due to a disability,please email View email address on ziprecruiter.com for other accommodation options.

San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance: Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, for all positions located in thecity and county of San Francisco, we will consider for employment qualified applicantswith arrest and conviction records.

Massachusetts Lie Detector: It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as acondition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this lawshall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI): We may use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support parts of our hiring process,including sourcing, screening, and evaluating candidates. AI helps assess applicationsand qualifications, but final decisions are made by our hiring team. By applying, youacknowledge and agree that your application may be reviewed using AI tools.