Lead IT Program Manager

Klaviyo•Boston, MA

About The Position

Klaviyo’s Corporate IT team, part of Global Technology Solutions (GTS), provides technology systems, administration, and support to Klaviyos worldwide. The IT Strategy & Operations team develops work management systems, drives organizational change, coordinates cross-functional programs, and aligns Corporate IT initiatives with the broader GTS vision. It works with Corporate IT teams, Information Security, and the wider organization, using modern DevOps practices and advancing configuration as code, infrastructure as code, and automation. The Lead IT Program Manager serves as the operational backbone of Corporate IT. This role delivers large cross-functional initiatives, owns portfolio planning and prioritization, runs the OKR process, and improves team operations through Agile practices, process improvement, and vendor management. The role uses AI routinely to accelerate work and help teams do the same. It reports to the Director of Corporate IT and partners with IT leaders, Engineering, Security, Finance, Procurement, Legal, and Business Operations.

Requirements

At least 6 years of experience in program or project management, operational leadership, or strategic consulting; ideally in IT, infrastructure, or technical environments.
Hands-on experience implementing and coaching Agile practices such as Scrum and Kanban across multiple teams, with the ability to adapt them to different kinds of work.
Experience establishing, running, and reporting on OKRs or a similar goal-setting framework with senior leaders.
A track record of diagnosing inefficiencies, redesigning workflows, and driving adoption of process improvements.
Experience scoping, planning, and delivering large, multi-team technical programs, including programs with budgets over $1 million and close collaboration with Finance and Procurement.
Working understanding of DevOps and CI/CD concepts, including infrastructure as code and automated deployments, and how they affect planning and delivery; hands-on experience is not required.
Experience leading vendor evaluations and RFP processes, including contract and performance management.
Daily use of AI tools such as LLM assistants, AI search, or agents, with concrete examples of how they have changed planning, communication, and delivery.
Experience building AI-assisted workflows or automations, such as prompts, agents, or low-code automation, to reduce manual work.
Excellent communication skills, including the ability to balance persuasion with active listening and tailor messages for engineers through executives.
Comfort leading cross-functional work amid ambiguity, shifting priorities, and loosely defined plans and objectives.
Strong hands-on experience with a modern Agile work management tool such as Linear, Jira, or a similar tool.

Nice To Haves

Linear experience.
PMP, Agile (PMI-ACP, CSM, SAFe), or Lean/process-improvement certification.
Experience with enterprise SaaS ecosystems such as Okta, Slack, Workday, or Jamf; network programs; or security and compliance programs.
Familiarity with low-code automation or workflow tools.
Experience mentoring or informally leading other project managers.

Responsibilities

Own end-to-end delivery of large, strategic cross-functional programs across IT Support, IT Systems, and IT Network, including scoping, planning, coordination, progress tracking, and schedule and resource adjustments.
Partner with IT Systems on programs involving DevOps practices such as infrastructure as code and automation; plan realistically, identify risks, and represent the work to leadership.
Perform risk analysis, develop contingency plans, and raise critical issues to support timely prioritization and trade-off decisions.
Establish program success metrics and report on adoption, delivery, and business impact.
Lead vendor evaluation and selection, including requirements gathering, RFI/RFP processes, scoring criteria, demos, proofs of concept, and build-versus-buy recommendations.
Work with Procurement, Accounting, Security, and Legal to manage program budgets and contingencies.
Partner with the Director of Corporate IT to establish quarterly OKRs aligned with GTS and company goals.
Run the quarterly OKR cadence, including drafting and alignment with team leads, check-ins, scoring, and retrospectives.
Track and report OKR progress to Corporate IT and GTS leadership, highlighting status, risks, and decisions needed.
Support strategic planning, roadmaps, annual and quarterly planning cycles, and leadership and cross-functional communications.
Partner with IT leadership to manage and influence the portfolio backlog, including project selection, intake, prioritization, and the future-work pipeline.
Develop the portfolio structure in Linear so projects connect to an OKR or strategic opportunity.
Lead Corporate IT capacity planning and analyze project trends in relation to goals.
Define and align Agile practices across Corporate IT, including planning, sprint and Kanban cadences, estimation, backlog refinement, retrospectives, and definition of done.
Coach teams and leads on Agile principles, adapting practices to project, operations, and support work.
Help lead the migration from Jira to Linear and configure and evolve workflows, views, and metrics such as velocity, cycle time, and throughput.
Lead process-improvement initiatives from idea through adoption, including documentation, change management, and measuring results.
Use AI to support program operations, such as drafting plans and status reports, synthesizing meetings and decisions, analyzing portfolio and OKR data, and identifying risks.
Build AI-assisted and automated program-operations workflows, including status reporting, backlog hygiene, intake triage, and OKR tracking.
Champion AI adoption by identifying use cases, piloting them with teams, and sharing effective playbooks.
Model responsible AI use, including privacy, security, and human-in-the-loop review.