Job Specifications
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.
Position Summary
Nava is seeking an experienced Senior Project Manager / Contract Lead to lead a key strategic program with an external customer. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in both Agile and traditional project management, a data-driven approach to delivery, a proven track record of stakeholder management and maturing delivery processes including risk and change management.
You'll partner with the Program Manager and cross functional leads to develop transparent reporting systems, scalable processes, and quality standards that enable consistent, high-impact execution. Success requires excellent communication, strong technical acumen, exceptional client relationship-building skills, and the ability to work independently.
This hybrid role reports to the Senior Director of Project Management and requires 2–3 days per week on-site in New Jersey.
What You’ll Do
Support the Program Manager to lead cross-functional delivery teams of design, product, engineering, and project management.
Organize, direct, and manage contract operations support functions in support of the Program Manager.
Own budget management, financial execution, and forecasting for the programLead the Project Management team in implementing Agile delivery frameworks across 9 scrum teams.
Build and maintain strong client relationships through proactive communication, transparency, and strategic partnership.
Develop, track, and report against program-level roadmap and milestones using an Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) for parallel delivery efforts.
Establish and mature scalable delivery processes and quality standards that ensure consistent, high-impact execution.
Design delivery performance metrics and dashboards for internal and external stakeholders.
Create and maintain reporting artifacts and escalation channels for proactive risk and opportunity management.
Implement and manage change management processes for the contract.
Work independently to identify and resolve challenges with minimal direction.
Additional duties as needed in support of the Program Manager or Director of Project Management.
Required Skills
Project Management: Agile Delivery Framework/CSM, traditional PM methodologies including Integrated Master Schedules (IMS), P&L Management, Change and Quality Management.
Technical & Tools: Jira/Atlassian Products, GitHub, Mural, Visio, Google Suite, data visualization tool (Tableau, Power BI, Looker), MS Office Suite and MS Teams, Slack.
Years of experience: 8-10 years of managing IT implementation projects, 5 years managing project management teams, 2-3 years platform, and cloud-based modernization projects.
implementation/deprecation, 3-5 years of experience with risks, opportunities, issues, and change management.
Education: Bachelor of Science and/or Bachelor of Arts; 15 years of experience in lieu of degree.
Desired Skills
Project Management: PMI PMP or SAFe Certification, Process Improvement.
Technical Skills & Tools: DevOps principles, CI/CD pipelines, and system integration concepts, cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), release and change management, modern software development practices, advanced skill in data visualization tool (Tableau, Power BI, Looker)
Years of experience: 10+ years of direct IT Project Management; 3+ years platform implementation/deprecation, 5+ years managing project management teams, 5+ years of experience with risks, opportunities, issues, and change management.
Education: B.S. in engineering, computer science, IT Systems Management; 15 years of experience in lieu of degree.
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