Director, Professional Services

OpenGov•Chicago, IL

3d•$180,000 - $200,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Professional Services leads a team of Project Managers and implementation experts responsible for implementing OpenGov solutions on time, on budget, and with high customer satisfaction. The role owns delivery predictability and portfolio profitability across a defined product vertical, enabling project managers to forecast and deliver accurately and enabling implementation analysts and consultants to deliver quality configuration, training, testing, and user acceptance. The Director partners closely with Product Management and Engineering to translate implementation reality into product direction, to reduce the manual effort required to stand up a customer, and to stand up engineering-led custom solutions where the standard product does not yet meet a customer commitment. The Director also serves as executive sponsor on projects within their portfolio. This is a role for someone who can hold two responsibilities at once: run a disciplined delivery organization against hard financial targets, and shape what gets built so that delivery gets easier and the product continues to grow with our customers.

Requirements

Minimum of five years leading professional services delivery teams in a SaaS environment, including direct P&L ownership.
Demonstrated experience driving an AI-first mentality across a delivery team: identifying where AI can remove manual effort from implementation, configuration, documentation, and reporting, and holding the team accountable for actually adopting it rather than treating it as optional.
Track record of partnering with Product and Engineering organizations to influence roadmap priorities using delivery data.
Experience scoping and delivering custom or configured solutions in coordination with engineering teams, including managing the commercial and support implications of that work.
Strong analytical thinking, a systems perspective, and diligent process analysis skills.
Strong initiative and innovative thinking, with the ability to work in detail and translate findings into a big-picture view.
Ability to adapt to a rapidly changing product and respond strategically to customer needs.
Experience building high-performing teams and managing performance directly.
Experience with risk mitigation, risk management, and escalation handling.
Comfort working with delivery and product data directly, including utilization, effort, and escalation reporting.
Communicate with confidence and credibility at the executive level, internally and with customers.
Comfortable using AI-native tools to accelerate workflows and improve efficiency.

Nice To Haves

Experience with government processes, protocols, and use cases applicable to our software.
Familiarity with software development practices and release cycles sufficient to engage credibly with engineering teams on scope and feasibility.
Experience defining the boundary between product capability and services delivery in a growing SaaS organization.

Responsibilities

Lead a team that achieves results and delivers intended, measurable outcomes for the business and for our customers.
Lead project managers with the operational rigor that drives predictability in scope, schedule, and effort.
Enable project managers with the tools, standards, and skills to set scope, timeline, and deliverables for successful deployments across multiple customers simultaneously.
Enable implementation analysts and consultants with the tools and skills to identify needs, configure and test solutions, and train customers effectively.
Own forecast accuracy for the portfolio, including hours to complete, revenue recognition timing, and go-live dates.
Establish command and control of project delivery, internally and externally, when projects are escalated.
Identify early signs of project and customer risk and devise risk response strategies that keep teams moving forward.
Set the expectation that the team works AI-first: apply AI tooling to scoping, configuration, testing, documentation, status reporting, and knowledge capture, and measure the hours it returns to the portfolio.
Lead the ongoing enhancement and codification of OpenGov’s project delivery methodology so that improvements persist beyond any single project or person.
Manage P&L for portfolio profitability, including margin, utilization, and hours-over-budget performance.
Drive efficiency gains during implementation so customers realize time to value as quickly as possible.
Ensure proper resource planning against a rolling forecast.
Participate in the sales process as needed to ensure proper scoping, resourcing, and deliverability of what is being sold.
Serve as the delivery organization’s primary voice into Engineering partners for the assigned vertical, bringing structured, evidence-backed input rather than anecdote.
Convert implementation friction into a prioritized product signal: quantify where configuration effort, workarounds, and repeated custom work are consuming hours, and translate that into concrete product requests with supporting delivery data.
Participate in roadmap and planning cycles as a standing partner, advocating for the configurability, extensibility, and deployment tooling that reduce services effort per customer.
Provide field validation for in-development features by coordinating design partners, early adopters, and pilot deployments within the portfolio, and by returning clear, timely feedback to product teams.
Track and report the delivery impact of shipped product improvements, including reduction in implementation hours, shortened time to go-live, and lower escalation volume.
Help shape release readiness from a delivery standpoint, ensuring that documentation, enablement, and migration paths exist before a feature reaches customers at scale.
Serve in an executive sponsor role and travel to customer sites to solidify relationships and ensure projects remain on track.
Build strong cross-functional and customer relationships that hold up under pressure during escalations.
Produce key customer references through high quality of delivery.
Partner with cross-functional teams to secure required resources and to set appropriate expectations with internal and external stakeholders.
Inspire and persuade the team to buy into the overall company vision and to deliver a high standard of customer satisfaction.
Build and develop a high-performing team: cultivate top talent, coach for growth, and take swift, fair action on underperformance while sustaining trust and collaboration.
Act like an owner. Navigate business challenges and opportunities to deliver productive outcomes, and demonstrate commitment to the organizational mission, vision, and culture.