Technical Delivery Manager

For People•Arlington, VA

7d•$100,000 - $130,000•Remote

About The Position

For People is a team of skilled technologists improving government digital services for disadvantaged and vulnerable populations. We embed directly in government agencies to modernize software, systems, and platforms so that they better serve people. As a Delivery Manager, you bring clarity where it is missing. The project you will be working on advances work through real ambiguity, and this role is about listening across policy, technical, and government-partner contexts, making sense of what is actually being asked, and turning that into clear decisions, shared expectations, and workable next steps. You build trust by naming tradeoffs early, holding decision rights clear, and following through. You make sure the team has the clarity, coordination, and documentation to build it well. You will also get to know the work other For People teams are doing to look for opportunities for collaboration and learning. The team you will be working on is a data program for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The team builds monthly datasets and reports for state and CMS audiences, produced through a data pipeline that draws on state-submitted Medicaid data. The data science team builds and runs that pipeline in Python and SQL. You will not write code, but you will work close enough to the data and the build process to shape clear requirements, ask the right questions, and explain the work to varied audiences.

Requirements

4 to 5 years of experience in delivery, program coordination, or discovery roles on technical or data-heavy programs
Government experience, whether with state or federal health agency experience is preferred
Comfort switching between the big picture and the details
Strong synthesis and written communication, for example requirements, decision memos, risk summaries, and leadership briefings
The ability to operate in ambiguous situations without creating chaos, acting on the question of where the team needs clarity and how to get there
The ability to communicate, anticipate and proactively address roadblocks, document, and follow through
Comfort working in partnership with a strong leadership team, navigating overlaps and gaps in responsibilities
Must perform all work physically within the United States at all times.
Must be a United States citizen
Must be able to pass a government-performed public trust background check.

Nice To Haves

Experience with CMS or other federal health agency programs and systems
Familiarity with Medicaid data or other large-scale health data
Comfort working with high-profile government partners and high-stakes, high-visibility programs
Comfort reading and reasoning about data pipeline work in Python and SQL, enough to translate it into requirements and plain-language summaries
Familiarity with agile delivery practices and the ability to support planning ceremonies
Experience navigating stakeholder approval and formal clearance pathways

Responsibilities

Facilitate problem framing exercises, gather assumptions, and explore options for ad-hoc requests, such as valid value changes, data quality enhancements, and one-off analyses
Document the discovery process itself, including different pathways for lower-complexity and higher-complexity asks
Co-lead roadmap updates with the Product Manager, supporting the requirements clarity and partner alignment that feed into them
Translate jargon-heavy policy or technical inputs into clear requirements, acceptance criteria, and decision memos, then hand off well-shaped requirements to the Product Manager
Build enough working fluency in the team's data to understand their work and effectively communicate about its progress.
Maintain a shared understanding of delivery expectations across partner teams, reducing communication and handoff gaps without micromanaging
Own the risk register in consultation with the Product Manager and the team's policy SME, documenting decision points and tradeoffs around complexity, level of effort, and feasibility
Make sure the clearance process for the monthly reports exists and runs predictably, supporting reporting readiness for these external-facing deliverables
Prepare and deliver leadership-ready summaries that translate complex work into understandable narratives