Project Manager, AI & Automation

Duke Careers • Durham, NC

4d

About The Position

The Provost area AI & Automation team is looking for a Project Manager to plan, organize, and coordinate a portfolio of AI and automation initiatives across HR/payroll, finance, and business processes. In this role, you will keep multiple projects and stakeholders aligned—maintaining the project pipeline, driving scoping and requirements gathering, and ensuring that active projects are delivered on time, within scope, and with clear communication to partners. You’ll thrive in a small, entrepreneurial team that balances project-management discipline with flexibility and curiosity about new technologies, including AI and automation tools.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in business, information systems, public administration, or a related field; or an equivalent combination of relevant education and/or experience.
• Four or more years of progressively responsible experience managing projects or complex initiatives in a professional setting.
• Demonstrated experience creating and maintaining project plans and timelines; coordinating work across multiple stakeholder groups; leading meetings, documenting decisions, and following up on action items.
• Experience working on projects related to operations, IT systems, data, or process improvement.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in a higher education or similarly complex, decentralized organization.
• Exposure to AI, automation, analytics, or workflow tools (e.g., RPA, chatbots, low-code/no-code platforms, or enterprise AI tools).
• Experience mapping workflows and supporting end-to-end IT or process transformation projects.
• Project management certification (e.g., PMP, CAPM, Scrum Master) or formal training (preferred but not required).

Responsibilities

• Maintain a central portfolio of candidate and active AI/automation projects, including status, priority, owners, and key dates; prepare portfolio summaries and status updates for leadership.
• Design and run lightweight intake and prioritization processes for new project requests from HR, finance, and other business units; track 5+ concurrent projects across discovery, design, implementation, and evaluation.
• Develop and maintain formal project plans with timelines, milestones, testing phases, and implementation steps; coordinate kick-offs, define scope and objectives, and clarify success criteria.
• Monitor progress against plan; identify and escalate risks, issues, and scope changes; propose adjustments to keep projects on track; support end-to-end execution from proof-of-concept through deployment and post-implementation review.
• Plan and facilitate requirements-gathering sessions with HR/payroll, finance, and administrative units; document process maps, user stories, and functional requirements; translate between technical and non-technical audiences and surface tradeoffs.
• Schedule, prepare, and facilitate project meetings and working groups (agendas, notes, action items); maintain clear, consistent communication so stakeholders always know status, decisions, and next steps.
• Contribute to shared templates, tools, and project-management standards (intake forms, requirements templates, dashboards); capture lessons learned and help build a repeatable playbook; stay informed about emerging AI/automation capabilities relevant to higher-education operations.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees