Senior Program Manager

Points North is looking for a Senior Program Manager who is excited to support the way a growing, 60-person SaaS company gets its most important work done. This is not a PMO role where you install a methodology and police it. It is a hands-on role at a company that has grown on the strength of good people and good instincts and now needs just enough structure to keep that working as we take on bigger things: major product launches, company-wide initiatives, and a brand-new product experiment that needs an owner.

You will report to the VP of Engineering, but you will serve with the whole company. Product and Engineering, then Sales, Customer Success, Client Support, Implementation, Operations, Managed Services, Finance, Marketing, and People and Culture. You will be evolving program and project governance from close to zero, which means you get to decide what good looks like here, and you get to live with the results.

If you are the kind of person who believes the best process is the one nobody notices because it just works, who has seen heavyweight frameworks slow good teams down and has no interest in importing one, and who is as comfortable owning a product backlog as you are running a cross-functional launch, we want to talk to you.

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Enhance lightweight program and project governance for Product and Engineering, and then for the company. Collaboratively structure and then document how work gets proposed, prioritized, tracked, and finished. Build the minimum that gives leaders the visibility and teams the clarity they need, and then defend that minimum against the natural pull toward more.

• Run our largest cross-functional initiatives end to end. Major product launches, operational improvement projects, and company-wide changes that touch every department. Own the plan, the dependencies, the risks, the communication, and the follow-through, so that the people doing the work know what they need to do and can focus on the work.

• Support the adoption of AI tools across the company. Not a mandate from above, but a real program: find where AI tooling makes people measurably more effective, help teams try it, learn what works, and spread it. Use AI yourself as a force multiplier in how you plan, communicate, and analyze.

• Be the Product Owner for an early-stage product experiment. We have one engineer dedicated to an early-stage internal tool that may have wider market opportunities. For at least the next six to twelve months, you will own the product side of that experiment: talk with internal and external stakeholders to vet which problems are worth solving, decide how to solve them and in what order, write clear requirements the engineer can build from, and build the evidence for whether there is a larger market. If it succeeds, we will hire a dedicated product manager to hand off to, and you will continue as our Senior Program Manager.

• Make priorities visible and tradeoffs explicit. Help leadership see what is in flight, what is competing for the same people, and what it costs to say yes to something new. Bring data and a point of view and let the executives make the call with clear information.

• Facilitate the Agile events and rituals that earn their keep. Planning, reviews, retrospectives, and the rhythms that keep teams aligned, tuned to what actually helps the team ship rather than what a framework prescribes.

• Build the operating cadence for the company. Quarterly planning, status reporting that people actually read, decision logs, and the handful of templates that make the next project easier than the last one. Document it well enough that it runs without you in the room.

• Partner with every function. Spend real time with Sales, Customer Success, Support, Implementation, Operations, Managed Services, Finance, Marketing, and People and Culture. Understand how each team works before suggesting how it could work better.

• Close the loop. When an initiative finishes, find out whether it delivered what it promised based on the metrics and success criteria established at kickoff. Run honest retrospectives and share what you learn to improve how we run the next one.

• Continuously learn and grow, in program management, in product thinking, and in how you help a company get better at getting things done.

What We Are Looking For:

• A practical thinker who knows the goal is a company that executes well, not a governance model for its own sake.

• A builder of just-enough process. Someone who has seen both ends of the spectrum, chaos and bureaucracy, and has a practiced instinct for the lightweight middle. You know that a process which is not followed is worse than no process at all.

• A practitioner of real Agile software development. You have worked inside teams that actually ship this way, and you understand the principles well enough to adapt the practices to the team instead of forcing the team to fit the practices.

• Someone with enough product instinct to own a product. You can sit with a customer, hear a problem underneath the request, decide what to build first, and write a requirement an engineer can act on without a meeting to decode it.

• A strong communicator who can brief an executive in two minutes, run a working session with a sales or operations team, and write a status update that people read all the way to the end. You follow up on your commitments and your questions.

• Someone who is enthusiastic about AI as an enabler, eager to experiment with AI-assisted tooling in your own work and to help others do the same, without abdicating judgment.

• A collaborator who earns trust across departments by being useful, not by holding authority. People should want you in the room because things go better when you are there.

• Someone who takes pride in enabling others and finds real satisfaction in a team finishing something big and knowing that your work under them made it easier.

Qualifications:

• 10+ years of experience in program management, project management, product management, or a combination, with a track record of delivering large, cross-functional initiatives in a software company.
• 10+ years of experience working in a SaaS company or small, fast-paced environment.

• Hands-on experience with Agile software development as it is actually practiced by small, effective teams. Scrum or similar experience is a requirement.

• Experience leading operational improvement or organizational change initiatives that spanned multiple departments.

• Product management experience: customer discovery, requirements definition, backlog ownership, and prioritization. Experience validating a new product or market is a strong plus.

• Experience building program or portfolio governance from an early stage, in a company that did not already have it.

• Comfort with ambiguity and with being the person who creates clarity, rather than the person who waits for it.

• Strong written communication. You have written plans, updates, and requirements that people read and acted on.

• Fluency with modern collaboration and work-tracking tools (for example Azure DevOps, Jira, or similar, we use Azure DevOps)

• Fluency with AI tools such as CoPilot and or Claude and a willingness to judiciously use AI tools as part of your daily work.

• Bonus: Experience in a regulated industry, or with payroll, HRIS, or benefits data and the handling requirements that come with it.

• Bonus: Experience leading an AI adoption or similar technology-enablement initiative.
• ​​​​​​​Comfortable working primarily Central Time hours, and up to 15% travel annually for quarterly planning, team offsites, all-company meetings, and more, as needed.

At Points North, we believe that taking care of our team is the foundation of our success. That’s why we’ve created a benefits package designed to support you both personally and professionally: 

• Health Insurance: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans are available to keep you and your family healthy. 

• Retirement Savings: Invest in your future with employer-matching contributions to a SIMPLE Traditional and/or ROTH IRA plan. 

• Time Off: Generous PTO, paid holidays, and Volunteer Time Off (VTO) are offered so that you can take time to recharge and give back to what matters to you. 

• Growth Opportunities: Professional development is encouraged whether it be in training, certifications, or other opportunities to boost your career. 

• Flexibility: Depending on the role, remote or hybrid arrangements may be made available to fit your lifestyle and business needs. 

For this position the base salary range is $135,000.00-$165,000 per year, plus additional annual bonus program eligibility. Final compensation determinations will reflect your unique experience, skills, and the responsibilities of the role. 

At Points North, you’ll find an energizing, ambitious and supportive workplace where your contributions make a real impact. Ready to join our team? Apply today to take the next step in your career! 

Originally posted on Himalayas