Program Manager

Our client is seeking a highly skilled Program Delivery & Product Operations Lead Consultant to drive delivery excellence, strengthen cross-functional alignment, and elevate the operating rhythm of our engineering and product organization. This position is hybrid onsite in Northern NJ 3 days a week. Local candidates only/no relocation.

This role is not eligible for employer-sponsored work authorization (e.g., H-1B, OPT, CPT, etc.) or transfer. Candidates must have valid U.S. work authorization

This role partners directly with VPs, Directors, and Development Managers to shape delivery plans, manage risk and dependencies, embed AI-enabled ways of working, and raise the bar for Product and Engineering Operations.

If you thrive at the intersection of delivery governance, product strategy, engineering operations, and organizational alignment
, this is a high-impact opportunity.

• Partner with senior leadership to design delivery plans, define critical paths, and support capacity management across distributed teams.
• Facilitate structured RAID processes, ensuring risks and issues are surfaced, owned, and resolved.
• Support change governance, release frameworks, and dependency-coordination models.
• Define program-level KPIs and connect delivery metrics to product and business outcomes.
• Continuously refine delivery processes, introducing improved tooling, methods, and ways of working.
• Own the end-to-end program-level risk & dependency management process.
• Maintain a live risk/dependency register and lead regular VP/Director reviews.
• Identify emerging risks across delivery, technical, resourcing, and third-party domains.
• Drive mitigation planning and facilitate dependency-resolution forums to protect the critical path.

• Partner closely with VP/Director-level stakeholders and Development Managers to maintain alignment across organizational boundaries.
• Produce executive-level narratives, portfolio health reporting, and delivery insights.
• Champion transparent communication practices for globally distributed teams.

• Integrate AI tools and agentic workflows into delivery processes.
• Evaluate tool fitness and safety, run pilots/POVs, and establish AI adoption standards for the PMO.
• Drive responsible, value-aligned AI enablement across delivery functions.

• Support Technical Excellence reviews covering code coverage, vulnerabilities, DR readiness, cost metrics, and delivery KPIs.
• Own and improve Engineering Operations practices including incident management, on-call, change/release controls, environment management, and operational readiness.

• Champion Product Operations across the delivery function.
• Partner with Product & Project Managers to maintain accurate, prioritized, outcome-aligned roadmaps.
• Uphold roadmap hygiene: clear definitions, sequencing, deduplication, and linkage to strategic objectives.
• Embed Product Ops practices including intake governance, feature lifecycle management, backlog health reviews, and cross?team prioritization.
• Improve the quality of product artefacts — epics, user stories, acceptance criteria, and release plans.

• Contribute to the PMO community of practice through playbooks, templates, and shared learnings.
• Champion new tooling, refined standards, and modern delivery approaches.
• Participate in PMO retrospectives, knowledge-sharing forums, and capability-building initiatives.

• Coach junior and mid-level PMs on planning, facilitation, risk thinking, dependency awareness, and product mindset.
• Lead complex workshops, design thinking sessions, hackathons, and AI use-case discovery.
• Drive cross-functional ideation and translate outcomes into actionable delivery initiatives.