Program / Project Manager

KNZ Solutions•Bethesda, MD

1d•Onsite

About The Position

The Program / Project Manager leads and coordinates technology initiatives across federal government, commercial, and State, Local, and Education customer environments. This is a delivery-focused, customer-facing role serving as the primary coordination point among customer stakeholders, technical teams, vendors, and KNZ leadership. The manager owns projects end-to-end, from planning and kickoff through implementation, testing, validation, transition, and closeout, ensuring delivery on schedule, within scope, and in accordance with contractual and government requirements. The position requires experience managing complex IT projects and programs, strong command of project management methodologies, technical fluency to translate engineering activity into actionable plans, and clear communication with technical teams, customer leadership, and executive stakeholders. The manager maintains ownership of issues through resolution and supports compliance with applicable security, privacy, operational, and customer-specific requirements. This is a full-time, onsite, customer-facing position based in Bethesda, Maryland. Some local travel may be required. The employee must be comfortable working in secure government environments and complying with customer-specific physical access, cybersecurity, information-handling, and operational requirements. U.S. citizenship and the ability to satisfy applicable federal customer background, access, or security requirements are required; depending on the customer and assignment, a Public Trust investigation or other federal background screening may be required.

Requirements

At least 5 years of experience managing IT projects, programs, or technical service delivery initiatives.
Experience supporting federal government and/or other highly regulated environments.
Demonstrated experience managing complex technology projects involving multiple technical disciplines and stakeholders.
Experience developing and maintaining project schedules, risk registers, status reports, action-item logs, and project documentation.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate effectively with technical teams, customer leadership, and executive stakeholders.
Strong understanding of project management methodologies, including Waterfall, Agile, or hybrid delivery approaches.
Experience with project management and collaboration platforms such as Smartsheet, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Jira, or similar tools.
Technical fluency to understand concepts and coordinate work across infrastructure, networking, cloud, cybersecurity, data center, or related technology teams.
Strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple priorities and dependencies.
U.S. citizenship and ability to satisfy applicable federal customer background, access, or security requirements.
Comfort operating within secure government environments and complying with customer-specific physical access, cybersecurity, information-handling, and operational requirements.

Nice To Haves

Experience managing federal IT modernization, infrastructure deployment, cloud migration, cybersecurity, network modernization, or data center transformation initiatives.
Experience working with federal contracting environments, Statements of Work (SOWs), deliverables, milestones, and acceptance criteria.
Experience coordinating OEMs, subcontractors, telecommunications providers, and other third-party partners.
Experience managing projects involving Cisco, VMware/Broadcom, Microsoft, Nutanix, Palo Alto Networks, AWS, Azure, or similar enterprise platforms.
Experience preparing executive briefings and presenting project status to government leadership.
Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Business, Engineering, or a related field.
PMP, PgMP, PMI-ACP, Scrum Master, or equivalent project/program management certification.
Familiarity with federal security and compliance frameworks such as NIST, FISMA, FedRAMP, CMMC, or DoD security requirements.

Responsibilities

Lead the planning, execution, monitoring, and completion of federal or commercial IT projects and programs.
Develop and maintain project schedules, milestones, deliverables, dependencies, action items, and risk registers.
Coordinate activities across engineering teams, customer stakeholders, subcontractors, OEM partners, and third-party vendors.
Serve as a primary customer-facing point of contact for project status, priorities, risks, issues, and escalations.
Facilitate project kickoff meetings, status meetings, technical coordination sessions, and executive-level reviews.
Track contractual requirements, deliverables, acceptance criteria, and project commitments.
Identify project risks, dependencies, and resource constraints and develop mitigation plans.
Manage project scope and coordinate changes through established change-management processes.
Monitor project performance against schedules, budgets, and objectives.
Prepare and deliver project status reports, dashboards, meeting minutes, action-item tracking, and executive communications.
Work with technical architects and engineers to translate technical activities into actionable project plans.
Coordinate implementation, migration, testing, validation, transition, and project closeout activities.
Support resource planning and align appropriate technical resources with project requirements and schedules.
Maintain project documentation in accordance with customer, contractual, and organizational requirements.
Support compliance with applicable security, privacy, and operational requirements.
Escalate issues appropriately while maintaining ownership through resolution.
Manage multiple concurrent workstreams and priorities within complex customer environments.

Benefits

Medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage.
Employer-paid short-term disability, long-term disability, and life insurance.
Paid vacation starting at 12 days (96 hours) per year, increasing with years of service.
Paid sick leave up to 7 days per year.
401(k) retirement savings plan upon completing a year of employment.
Tuition reimbursement or assistance toward continuing education.
Paid attendance at approved workshops and conferences.
Full access to LinkedIn Learning.
Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
Professional development and ongoing learning opportunities.
Employee recognition programs.
Company-sponsored social events and team-building activities.
Collaborative, team-oriented work environment.
Opportunities to work on high-impact projects with experienced professionals.