Sr. Technical Program Manager

Aspida Financial Services LLC•Durham, NC

20h•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Technical Program Manager will serve as an execution-focused “portfolio management partner” to Aspida’s IT organization, supporting our product-aligned delivery model. Working in close collaboration with Product Operations and aligned with IT and Product leadership, this role reinforces delivery discipline, transparency, and accountability across multiple “product squads” (cross-discipline product delivery teams) by maintaining clear visibility into progress against committed initiatives; ensuring strong alignment & change management; proactively managing risks, issues, and dependencies; and collaborating to standardize metrics for predictability, speed, and quality. The role exists to strengthen alignment between (and across) delivery teams and stakeholders through consistent, trusted reporting and early surfacing of execution risks—while preserving clear ownership of outcomes within IT and ensuring a single, aligned narrative to business stakeholders and senior leadership. The ideal candidate is a seasoned delivery leader who bridges the gap between complex technical execution and executive-level strategy. You will serve as a disciplined orchestrator who excels at portfolio-level management while applying appropriate project/program/portfolio management best practices across both agile and hybrid/waterfall initiatives. You possess extremely high relational & negotiation capabilities, and the independence to provide objective, data-backed accountability (surfacing truth to IT leadership to accelerate solutioning) and the stakeholder-first posture required to ensure there are no surprises for senior business leadership. You are outcome-focused, strategic, collaborative, and someone who comes to serve & support our organization in increasing execution discipline. This role reports to the Senior Director, PMO and is required to be onsite 3 days a week at our Durham, NC office.

Requirements

8+ years project management experience, and 3+ years of experience leading complex technical programs or portfolios consisting of multiple projects/initiatives spanning multiple teams.
Proven ability to translate technical team velocity and complex software development lifecycle (SDLC) data into clear business insights, risks, and trade-offs for executive stakeholders.
Significant experience working within software development environments, with a career trajectory that has shifted toward business-side strategy, portfolio management, and operational excellence.
Exceptional relational capabilities with the ability to influence senior leadership and the diplomacy to partner with technical squads without overstepping ownership boundaries.
Fluency in Agile/Scrum frameworks combined with the ability to apply "right-sized" waterfall or hybrid approaches for large-scale corporate initiatives.
Demonstrated experience diagnosing root causes for at-risk initiatives—ranging from requirement gaps to dependency misalignment—and driving them to resolution.
Proficiency in modern SaaS-based project management tools (e.g., Smartsheet, JIRA).
Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Technology, or a related field; professional certifications (e.g., PMP, PfMP, or SaFE) are a plus but secondary to proven senior-level experience.

Nice To Haves

professional certifications (e.g., PMP, PfMP, or SaFE) are a plus but secondary to proven senior-level experience.

Responsibilities

Enable Portfolio Strategic Alignment: Facilitate quarterly executive portfolio alignment & prioritization, collaborating closely with and partnering with the Product Management team and IT leadership.
Work across IT delivery teams to ensure availability of executive-ready capacity and effort estimates to drive informed trade-off discussions, and document all decisions.
Ensure technical initiatives are linked to company strategic goals and the enterprise project portfolio.
Drive Delivery Discipline & Transparency: Facilitate monthly IT leadership execution reviews to track progress against committed initiatives and identify course corrections.
Partner with Product Ops to standardize and review portfolio reporting/scorecards including metrics on predictability, speed and quality.
Maintain a single, visible view of risks & issues for all initiatives to provide early visibility on trouble spots and proactive mitigation.
Enhance Change Management & Accountability: Operationalize a lean change management framework that balances agility with executive alignment – accelerating time-to-decision with clear roles & responsibilities for business stakeholders, product squad leaders, and executive sponsors.
Support product squad leaders in exercising ownership & accountability, engaging stakeholders & sponsors directly on tactical shifts to maintain flow and decision velocity.
Drive the organization towards a single "source of truth" for all stakeholders, ensuring expectations and status are clear.
Ensure material risks and executive-facing updates are aligned with IT and Product leadership prior to broader stakeholder communication.
Improve Delivery Outcomes: Engage where needed on at-risk initiatives, in partnership with product and IT leadership, to diagnose root causes—like alignment, requirements, dependencies, or resource/capacity—and engage with appropriate leaders to resolve bottlenecks.
Establish a "system-level" roadmap view (for key systems/technologies) and understanding of resource capacity to support proper sequencing of work across teams.
Monitor the discovery phase to identify bottlenecks early and ensure a steady stream of ready-to-build work.
Partner with business units to standardize and elevate User Acceptance Testing (UAT) processes.
Provide extra project management support to IT project leaders where there is an especially strong need for cross-functional or cross-team coordination.