Lead Technical Program Manager

Northwestern Mutual (NM) has been helping families and businesses achieve financial security for over 165+ years. Through a distinctive, whole-picture planning approach including both insurance and investments, we empower people to be financially confident. We combine the expertise of our financial professionals with a personalized digital experience and leading-edge technology to best serve our clients. To help guide the collaborative effort, we are in search of a Lead Technical Program Manager to join our team.

As a Lead Technical Program Manager, you will join our Engineering Solutions Delivery team that supports Client Experience Engineering and Corporate Solutions department. The role will help drive strategic work forward across Planning, Delivery, and Employee Engagement initiatives over our CXECS organization with a large scope. You will manage and monitor end to end annual goals and OKRs in support of initiative outcomes. This role is accountable for aligning one or more large, complex programs consisting of multiple efforts lead cross functionally, while providing opportunities to build strong business partner relationships. This role requires an analytical mindset, persistence to solve complex problems, ability to get things done quickly but thoughtfully.

Primary Duties & Responsibilities focused on Delivery and Employee Engagement​:

• Oversee the technical components of annual planning by collaborating with product managers and engineers to define epics, estimate their scope, and subsequently track delivery through systematic inputs and monitoring.

• Manage and monitor performance dashboards and provide status updates on OKR progress driving clarity on objectives, priorities, and measures.

• Partner with ESD Portfolio Delivery Operations and drive CXECS results reporting, simplification/decommissioning, and KTLO.

• Promote reuse of existing resources and bridge process and reporting gaps as necessary.

• Deep dive and implement agile metrics improvement initiatives across multiple domains.

• Lead initiatives that enable teams to manage backlog health in depth.

• Provide subject matter expertise and training in Jira and portfolio hub for work alignment.

• Facilitate problem resolution reviews across program teams to prevent incident breaches (P1-P3) and address root causes (90-day report)

• Partner with Fed Arch and horizontal engineering to monitor reporting and drive delivery routines.

• Make connections across teams and work streams to drive identification and facilitation of interdependencies. 

• Accountable for identifying, assessing, and mitigating program risks and issues, and removing impediments. 

• Ensure adherence to code commit standards creating a single, unified plan to deliver on talent development objectives.

• Evaluate employee feedback with pulse champions for tangible and measurable employee experience improvements.

• Compile key deliveries and achievements for reporting internally across CXECS and externally for ESD top accomplishments reporting.

• Coordinate business continuity planning and disaster recovery, assessing and mitigating risks and issues, and removing impediments.

• May lead or mentor program managers in support of initiative outcomes.

• Act as backup and ensure continuity when the Chief of Staff is unavailable.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, Computer Science, Information Systems or related field, or an equivalent combination of education and work experience.

• Minimum 6 years of professional experience.

• Five or more years of program management experience in technology and/or business functions. Experience with program management methodologies & governance.

  • Experience with PowerBI or Tableau

  • Experience with JIRA Align

  • Experience working with Agile Methodologies

• Experience with project management methodologies & SDLC.  Working knowledge of project management / agile tooling.  

• Understands how software is developed, tested, and implemented as well as technical concepts. Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.

Benefits:

• Tuition reimbursement, commuter plans, and paid time off

• Highly competitive compensation that include base salary plus bonus

• Medical/Dental/Vision plans, 401(k), pension program

#LI-Hybrid

Northwestern Mutual pays on a geographic-specific salary structure and placement in the salary range for this position will be determined by a number of factors including the skills, education, training, credentials and experience of the candidate; the scope, complexity as well as the cost of labor in the market; and other conditions of employment. At Northwestern Mutual, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. Please note that the salary range listed in the posting is the standard pay structure. Positions in certain locations (such as California) may provide an increase on the standard pay structure based on the location. Please click here for additional information relating to location-based pay structures.

We are an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age or status as a protected veteran, or any other characteristic protected by law.

If you work or would be working in California, Colorado, New York City, Washington or outside of a Corporate location, please click here for information pertaining to compensation and benefits.