Sr. Director, PDLC Governance

Early Warning® • Chicago, IL

1d • $188,000 - $282,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

Enable strategic direction by serving as the enterprise product owner for the Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC) framework. The role is responsible PDLC strategy, governance, standards, adoption, and ongoing maturity to enable consistent, disciplined execution of company initiatives across product, technology, and business teams. This role oversees prioritized programs and governance activities, embeds risk and control requirements into lifecycle execution, and partners with Product, Technology, Risk, Compliance, Internal Audit, and executive stakeholders to ensure delivery capabilities are scalable, effective, audit-ready, and aligned with business and regulatory expectations.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Project Management and/or Computer Science or related field.
• Typically has 15 years of experience in project/program management, product governance, enterprise transformation, or related leadership, or demonstrated portfolio consistent with experience required of the role.
• Proven leadership experience managing teams and leading complex, enterprise-wide or cross-functional initiatives through scalable operating practices.
• Demonstrated P&L experience from both a department and project level.
• Excellent oral, written, interpersonal, presentation, and analytical skills, with the ability to communicate complex governance, risk, control, and remediation outcomes clearly.
• Proven experience presenting to and influencing senior and executive stakeholders, including aligning perspectives across Product, Technology, Risk, Compliance, and audit functions.
• MS 365 (PPT, Word, Excel, Project, etc.)
• Comprehensive knowledge of Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC) and Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) frameworks, lifecycle governance, and enterprise operating models.
• Ability to translate business, risk, regulatory, and technology requirements into governance standards, roadmap priorities, capabilities, and process decisions.
• Strong knowledge of risk and control practices, including governance, control effectiveness, evidence requirements, issue remediation, and audit readiness.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional change and drive adoption across multiple lines of business through influence, sound judgment, and scalable operating practices.
• Background and drug screen.
• Eligibility to work in the United States, for any employer, at the date of hire.
• This position is ineligible for employment Visa sponsorship.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with enterprise workflow, project management, and collaboration platforms, including Jira and Confluence, and automation supporting lifecycle governance.
• Financial services or financial technology environment experience.
• Agile or Waterfall methodologies experience.
• Experience leading large-scale PDLC or SDLC transformation, migration, modernization, or lifecycle-governance improvement.
• Experience designing or modernizing lifecycle governance frameworks in a regulated environment.
• Experience working across Product and Technology organizations.

Responsibilities

• Provides executive governance and communications to ensure effective resource utilization, prioritization, and lifecycle decision-making.
• Owns and maintains PDLC standards, procedures, controls, operating models, governance forums, and operational rhythms; continuously evaluates processes and methodologies to improve consistent execution.
• Establishes and monitors OKRs, KPIs, lifecycle health measures, control effectiveness, risks, issues, and remediation activity.
• Uses insights to prioritize corrective actions, roadmap improvements, and sustainable resolution of execution or control gaps.
• Manages executive communication and escalations across the organization related to PDLC execution and governance.
• Serves as a senior escalation point for lifecycle interpretation, stage-gate decisions, exceptions, and deviations within delegated authority, and aligns stakeholders across first-, second-, and third-line functions.
• Leads cross-functional change, challenges current ways of working when they limit impact, and builds scalable systems and implementation approaches that improve execution across teams and drive enterprise-wide adoption and maturity of PDLC requirements.
• Defines the PDLC product vision, strategy, roadmap, requirements, and prioritized backlog; ensures lifecycle capabilities evolve based on business, risk, regulatory, technology, and user needs.
• Defines and governs stage gates, evidence requirements, stage-exit criteria, and lifecycle controls.
• Maintains clear accountability for lifecycle execution and drives consistent use of requirements across multiple lines of business.
• Partners with Product, Program, Engineering, Tooling, and Build Leads to translate business requirements into PDLC capabilities, backlog priorities, process improvements, workflow, and automation while balancing control rigor and product agility.
• Partners with Risk, Compliance, Internal Audit, and other oversight functions to align risk and control activities and evidence expectations while maintaining clear first-line accountability.
• Represents PDLC governance with executive leadership, auditors, regulators, and internal oversight functions as appropriate.
• Support the company's commitment to risk management and protecting the integrity and confidentiality of systems and data.

Benefits

• Competitive medical (PPO/HDHP), dental, and vision plans as well as company contributions to your Health Savings Account (HSA) or pre-tax savings through flexible spending accounts (FSA) for commuting, health & dependent care expenses.
• 401(k) Retirement Plan – Featuring a 100% Company Safe Harbor Match on your first 6% deferral immediately upon eligibility.
• Flexible Time Off for Exempt (salaried) employees, as well as generous PTO for Non-Exempt (hourly) employees, plus 11 paid company holidays and a paid volunteer day.
• 12 weeks of Paid Parental Leave
• Maven Family Planning – provides support through your Parenting journey including egg freezing, fertility, adoption, surrogacy, pregnancy, postpartum, early pediatrics, and returning to work.

What This Job Offers

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