Director, Platform Programs

Mercer Advisors

10d•$175,000 - $210,000

About The Position

The Director, Platform Programs owns the operating systems, cadences, and execution discipline of Mercer Advisors’ Platform organization. The role is responsible for roadmap planning and management; the end-to-end development process from intake through delivery; project management and execution across the Platform organization; and shared platform utilities including budget and resource tracking, platform metrics, vendor coordination, and coordination with central functions. The Director works directly with and on behalf of the Chief Platform Officer, providing leadership with clear visibility into delivery status, risks, and decisions needed. The position has authority across engineering, product, and data to define how work gets done and maintain accountability for commitments. The role leads annual and quarterly roadmap planning, the intake and prioritization framework, agile development processes, delivery tracking, and cross-functional coordination. It also supports the transition to a full squad model, maintains budget and capacity visibility, defines internal platform health metrics, and serves as a primary interface between Platform and central functions such as compliance, legal, finance, BI, and people. This professional role requires availability during standard business hours, Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM. Early or late hours may occasionally be needed to meet business tasks and deadlines for internal and external client needs. Work may take place in a professional office environment or a dedicated, interruption-free home office. Basic technology needs will be provided. The position routinely involves sitting and standing, with no heavy lifting over 10 lbs.

Requirements

8+ years in program management, PMO leadership, or a senior operational role within a product and/or technology organization.
Proven experience building operating models from the ground up.
Deep fluency in agile product delivery, software development, and roadmap planning.
Experience designing and operating intake and prioritization frameworks that stakeholders trust and use.
Experience running quarterly roadmap planning, sprint demos, retrospectives, and executive-facing updates.
Strong command of sizing and estimation methodologies across teams.
Skilled facilitation and decision-driving abilities with product managers and engineers.
Ability to proactively surface blockers with context and recommended paths forward, and to determine when to resolve or escalate them.
Ability to own budget tracking and resource allocation and partner with finance to maintain visibility and flag variances.
Experience coordinating across central functions and serving as an effective interface without becoming a bottleneck.
Experience producing concise, honest, actionable executive reporting and presenting to senior leadership.
Data fluency, including defining metrics, reading dashboards, and making decisions from data; ability to conduct analysis without relying on a data team.
Strong communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences.
Strong cross-functional relationship-building skills and ability to work across organizational boundaries without positional authority.
Comfort with ambiguity and competing priorities, and ability to create structure independently.

Nice To Haves

Experience in financial services or regulated industries.

Responsibilities

Own and facilitate quarterly and annual roadmap planning, connecting business goals, squad capacity, and delivery commitments.
Prepare and deliver Advisors Leadership Forum (ALF) updates on behalf of the Platform organization.
Organize and run outcome-focused sprint demos and retrospectives, and connect planned work, shipped work, and lessons learned.
Design and own the end-to-end development process, from intake and requirements through build and delivery, including scope-change approval.
Build and operate an intake framework that evaluates feature requests, initiatives, and technical investments by business impact, strategic alignment, squad capacity, and level of effort.
Define roles and responsibilities across product management, engineering, design, and data; introduce estimation discipline; and partner with product managers to pressure-test scope, identify dependencies, and prevent scope creep.
Own delivery execution across the Platform organization by tracking commitments, surfacing risks, and driving accountability across teams.
Proactively raise and follow through on blockers, dependencies, and delayed decisions, providing context and recommended paths forward and escalating when appropriate.
Represent Platform priorities in cross-functional conversations and build relationships that support alignment without unnecessary executive escalation.
Support the establishment of the full squad model by helping the organization understand it, tracking the transition, and ensuring process clarity.
Track and report development hours and team capacity, partner with finance on budget visibility and variances, and support resource-planning decisions.
Own internal Platform health metrics, including delivery velocity, planning accuracy, intake cycle times, and applicable uptime and SLA indicators.
Partner with customer experience and advisor experience functions to clarify the boundaries between platform and client-facing metrics and ensure coverage across both.
Act as the primary interface between the Platform organization and central functions, including compliance, legal, finance, BI, and people, helping prioritize and sequence Platform requests.
Coordinate vendor-related matters as part of the shared platform utilities function.

Benefits

Company-paid basic life and AD&D insurance.
Company-paid short-term and long-term disability insurance.
Supplemental life and AD&D, short-term disability, accident, critical illness, and hospital indemnity insurance.
Three Cigna medical plan offerings, including two High Deductible Health Plans and a Traditional Co-Pay medical plan.
Kaiser medical plans available in California.
Health Savings Account (HSA) with company contributions for employees enrolled in either HDHP medical plan.
Two comprehensive dental plans.
Vision insurance plan.
Dependent Care Savings Account for child and dependent care.
14 company-paid holidays, including a full week off at Thanksgiving.
Paid time off for vacation and sick days.
Employee Assistance Plan.
Family Medical Leave.
Paid parental leave (8 weeks).
Maternity benefits using company-paid short-term disability, any supplemental short-term disability, and parental leave (8 weeks).
Adoption Assistance Reimbursement Program.
Company-paid concierge services for employees and loved ones.
401(k) retirement plan with Traditional and Roth options, per-pay-period match, and an after-tax option.
Pet insurance.
Personalized financial planning and guidance from Mercer Advisors professionals at preferred employee pricing.