The Program Manager ensures contract commitments are met, facilitates communication across stakeholders, addresses risks, and champions process improvements.
About Nava
Nava is a consultancy and public benefit corporation working to make government services simple and effective. Since 2015, federal, state, and local agencies have trusted Nava to help solve highly scrutinized technology modernization challenges.
As a client services company, we guide agencies constrained by legacy systems to a future with sharp user experiences built on secure, reliable, fault-tolerant cloud infrastructure. We bill for our time, offering our expertise and problem-solving approach to help our government partners enhance their digital products and services. People are at the heart of our work, from members of the public who rely on benefit programs to government agency staff. Through human-centered design and modern engineering best practices, we help our government partners understand user needs and deliver on their missions more effectively. This focus gives everyone at Nava the opportunity to do work that is meaningful, impactful, and deeply connected to public good.
The Program Manager will be accountable for ensuring all contract commitments, milestones, and deliverables stay on track, while maintaining strong alignment with the program’s vision. They will serve as the primary escalation point for contract issues with the COR, deliver comprehensive monthly status updates to CMS, and ensure resources are deployed effectively to maximize delivery speed and impact.
The Program Manager will foster proactive communication across all stakeholders, address risks before they affect outcomes, and champion process improvements that increase agility and responsiveness—keeping the program focused on reducing burden for states and applicants. The Program Manager will collaborate with the Product Manager and the Design Lead to ensure we do the discovery necessary to properly scope and gather requirements for new pilot states.
What You’ll Do
- Exceed the expectations of our government partners by cultivating strong, trusting relationships and maintaining high situational awareness at the agency level
- Proactively detect risks and work collaboratively with the delivery team and program stakeholders to effectively resolve them (issues can span delivery, process, culture, expectation setting, staffing, contract milestones, finances)
- Engage our clients on a continuing basis to ensure their needs are met or exceeded, understand their vision, collaboratively solve issues, and communicate our progress transparently
- Maintain awareness of the broader project landscape and potential for new opportunities and risks and grow your portfolio accordingly with surge contract line item numbers (CLINs), option years, and negotiations with prime contractors
- Collaborate across projects and across the organization to proactively anticipate and solve problems across delivery
- Support the creation of delivery environments built on mutual trust between government partners and our team
- Scale efforts through a team of project managers and other functional delivery leads
- Manage all the contracts and finances on within your portfolio in coordination with the finance team and coordinate necessary contract modifications
- Set and uphold standards for delivery excellence and client service
- Apply Nava's policies and guidance at the program level (E.g. utilization guidance)
- Participate in developing on and delivering company objectives and key results
Required skills
- Must have experience with Custom Software or Cloud infrastructure programs/projects
- Experience working with or for government agencies
- Experience with growing agile development teams and the challenges of managing a project at scale
- Ability to demonstrate experience leading projects with significant complexity, including managing milestones, dependencies, and integrations with significant risk, uncertainty or scale
- Experience using agile frameworks like scrum, kanban, or SAFe and familiarity with agile development practices such as continuous integration and continuous delivery
- You are an empathetic communicator and relationship builder – you take a service-oriented approach to supporting the program team and our clients
- Adaptable problem solving and ability to deal with multi-dimensional challenges involving many organizations, processes, cultures, and technologies
- You are highly organized and care deeply about building and growing a sustainable, culture-conscious business
- A strategic approach to delivery planning and contract management over the medium-term and long-term
- An iterative approach to execution that emphasizes rapid team progress
- Ability to maintain broader situational awareness beyond the immediate team
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Occasional travel
Desired skills
- Program Management experience within a government space
- Experience launching new production systems with high public visibility
- Experience with long term, complex, and ambiguous IT modernization efforts
- Experience with using common project management tools like Jira and Confluence
- Project management in a government contextTrack record of introducing and expanding agile transformation and pursuing best practices in project management with clients and stakeholders
- Experience managing projects that provide production operations and support alongside ongoing product/feature development
Other requirements
All roles at Nava require the following:
Legal authorization to work in the United States
Ability to meet any other requirements for government contracts for which candidates are hired
Work authorization that doesn’t require visa sponsorship, now or in the future
May be subject to a government background check or security clearance, depending on the contract
Perks working with Nava
Health coverage — comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans to support your overall health needs
Insurance coverage — Nava provides disability, life, and accidental death insurance at no cost
Time off — vacation, holidays (including Juneteenth), and floating holidays to rest and recharge
Company holidays — enjoy 12 paid federal holidays each year on top of your regular PTO
Annual bonus — when Nava meets its goals, eligible employees receive a performance-based annual bonus
Parental leave — paid time off for new parents, plus weekly meals delivered to your home
Wellness program — full platform offering physical, mental, & emotional health resources & support tools
Virtual care — see doctors online with no copay through UnitedHealthcare’s virtual visit program
Sabbatical leave — earn extended unpaid leave after continuous service for personal growth or rest
401(k) match — Nava matches 4% of your salary to support your retirement savings plan
Flexible work — remote-first environment with flexibility built around your schedule and responsibilities
Home office setup — company laptop & setup assistance provided via Staples for remote work needs
Utility support — monthly reimbursement to help offset eligible home office utility expenses
Learning opportunities — internal training programs and resources to help grow your professional skills
Development opportunities — LinkedIn Learning access & an annual allowance for courses, tuition, & certs
Referral bonus — get rewarded when you refer great people who join the Nava team
Commuter benefits — pre-tax commuter programs to support in-office travel when applicable
Supportive culture — A collaborative and remote-friendly team environment where people genuinely care
Location
We have fully remote options if you reside in one of the following states:
Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, DC, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin
*If you are not living in one of the states listed above, unfortunately, you will not be considered for a position at this time.
Stay in touch
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Please contact the recruiting team at [email protected] if you would like to request reasonable accommodation during the application or interviewing process.
We participate in E-Verify. Upon hire, we will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. This role requires you to work from the contiguous United States.
Top Skills
Agile Frameworks
Cloud Infrastructure
Confluence
Custom Software
JIRA
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