Program Manager

Arkatechture • Portland, ME

4h • $90,000 - $120,000 • Remote

About The Position

Arkatechture is seeking a Program Manager to support our growing Product organization, which spans two critical verticals: Content, focused on customer facing features and experiences, and Platform, focused on infrastructure, scalability, and core systems.
This role will sit within the Product team and partner closely with Implementation and Support to ensure execution aligns with strategic priorities and customer outcomes. The Program Manager will collaborate with Product and Technology leadership and work cross functionally with solution architects, system administrators, developers, and stakeholders to plan and deliver new product capabilities and enhancements. Deliveries will follow agile, incremental methodologies aligned with the product roadmap and long term vision.

The ideal candidate is a strong critical thinker and problem solver who brings structure and clarity to complex initiatives. They are a proactive leader with exceptional written and verbal communication skills who thrives in a fast paced, collaborative environment. This individual is passionate about driving alignment across technical teams and ensuring work progresses with focus and momentum.

Requirements

• 7 or more years of experience in Program Management, Agile Delivery, or Technical Delivery roles within SaaS, data, or DevOps driven environments
• Strong working knowledge of Scrum, Kanban, and hybrid Agile delivery frameworks, with the ability to apply them pragmatically at scale
• Demonstrated experience partnering directly with Product to drive prioritization, roadmap planning, and execution alignment
• Proven ability to translate strategic initiatives into detailed, resourced delivery plans with clear milestones and measurable outcomes
• Advanced proficiency with Jira, Confluence, Smartsheets, and modern collaboration tools such as Slack and Google Workspace
• Strong executive level communication skills with the ability to manage up, down, and across the organization while navigating ambiguity and resolving conflict
• Experience driving estimation rigor, work breakdown structures, forecasting, and capacity planning through structured program management processes
• Demonstrated ability to balance multiple concurrent initiatives while maintaining clarity, focus, and delivery discipline for product teams
• Strong analytical, critical thinking, and problem solving capabilities
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field or equivalent practical experience

Nice To Haves

• Certified Scrum Master (CSM) or equivalent Agile certification
• Experience operating within SaaS based product organizations
• Familiarity with data platform implementations, ETL workflows, and cloud infrastructure environments, preferably AWS
• Experience with resource and capacity planning tools (Smartsheet, Jira Advanced Roadmaps, etc.).
• Strong understanding of software development lifecycle practices, DevOps methodologies, and integration environments
• Experience with Financial services is a nice to have
• Experience supporting customer facing platform or data products
• Exposure to enterprise implementation or go to market coordination

Responsibilities

• Lead and facilitate Agile ceremonies including daily standups, sprint planning, reviews, and retrospectives across multiple cross functional teams
• Champion Agile best practices while adapting frameworks pragmatically to meet team and organizational needs
• Partner closely with the Head of Product and CTO to ensure requirements are clearly understood, properly prioritized, and aligned with sprint capacity
• Support backlog management, refinement and prioritization efforts. While the Head of Product translates requirements into actionable user stories, the Program Manager ensures Jira hygiene, story refinement, and development readiness
• Partner with development teams to drive accurate estimation and task breakdown within Jira
• Coordinate sprint planning to ensure commitments are realistic and aligned with roadmap priorities
• Manage increments and milestones, ensuring alignment with staffing plans and strategic timelines
• Proactively identify risks, issues, and dependencies and communicate them clearly to stakeholders
• Maintain comprehensive visibility into progress, blockers, and team capacity across all active initiatives
• Provide consistent, structured updates including risk assessments and mitigation plans tailored to technical and non technical audiences
• Develop and maintain clear reporting artifacts, including dashboards and executive summaries, highlighting timelines, dependencies, risks, and key performance indicators such as OKRs and KPIs
• Develop and communicate a forward looking delivery plan that maps team capacity to roadmap initiatives over a rolling twelve month horizon, ensuring alignment between staffing, milestones, and strategic commitments
• Drive alignment and accountability across delivery teams to ensure sprint commitments and delivery targets are met
• Monitor scope to ensure work is realistically defined and sequenced, while proactively removing blockers and escalating risks when necessary
• Partner with product tech leads to balance velocity, technical debt, and timeline commitments in support of long term product health
• Identify and manage cross team dependencies to ensure sequencing and coordination across parallel initiatives
• Establish and monitor delivery performance metrics including predictability, cycle time, and release quality to drive continuous improvement
• Maintain visibility into team capacity across competing priorities and provide structured reporting to Product leadership and relevant stakeholders
• Translate the product roadmap into a resourced, multi quarter delivery plan that aligns capacity with strategic initiatives and provides early visibility into staffing gaps, milestone risk, and execution feasibility
• Collaborate on sprint forecasting and release planning to support go to market timelines, implementation schedules, and customer commitments
• Identify process gaps and delivery inefficiencies and recommend scalable, sustainable improvements
• Contribute to building operational playbooks and knowledge management documentation within Confluence
• Support structured defect tracking, root cause analysis, and post mortem reviews to drive measurable improvements in delivery performance

Benefits

• A flexible remote work policy with optional access to our Portland, Maine office
• A 4-day workweek after 3 years of service
• Generous paid time off, including 11 holidays
• Medical, disability, life insurance, and optional dental/vision
• 401(k) retirement plan with company match
• Training & certification reimbursement
• Milestone recognition programs, annual PTO increases, and more

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level