Project Manager - #1403096

The Project Manager is an integral member of the Project Management team and of their assigned project teams. The Project Manager is responsible for working closely with their project team comprised of Engineers, Quality Assurance, Product Management, and Design, to plan, execute and deliver high-quality projects on time and within scope. The Project Manager has a strong sense of ownership and has a deep understanding of Politico’s products and applications to facilitate solutions to a variety of business and technical challenges and unblock their team when impediments arise. 

The Project Manager collaborates with their project team to progress product development efforts forward.

This role will be based out of our office in Arlington, VA (HQ).

What You’ll Do

• Act as project team scrum master and actively work with project team members to define the overall sprint goals, scope, dependencies, and milestones for releases of Politico products and plan according to team velocity
• Coordinate the quarterly planning process with Product Management to estimate and define high priority product features Manage the day-to-day activities of the project team, including planning and organizing sprint cycles, facilitating daily standups, engineer task assignments, facilitating retrospectives, etc., while ensuring the overall objectives of projects are achieved and issues that are identified are managed
• Work closely with Software Development Managers to ensure engineers are working at full capacity and identify and advocate for team members when they become blocked or face impediments during the sprint
• Become a key team member who: understands how end users interact and use the product; can identify when acceptance criteria on tickets is not sufficient for developers or QA; clarifies requirement questions with Product when they arise; is comfortable testing to help troubleshoot issues
• Lead and congregate various teams through all phases of the project life cycle working toward the same outcomes, including Quality Assurance, Engineering, Product Management, and Design
• Work closely with colleagues in Technology and Product to remove impediments and bring appropriate decision makers together to align on project decisions or changes to reach resolutions
• Facilitate decision-making processes and ensure that key information is shared in a global team environment
• Document and distribute key notes and action items from team meetings, interactions, and decisions; communicate globally to the team in Slack and/or on issues in Jira and follow-up as needed for timely resolution
• Support and lead the team through the change management process for any scope or schedule modifications required
• Collaborate with other project teams to ensure dependencies are accounted for and completed within an acceptable timeframe
• Bring fresh ideas and perspectives that improve product quality and outcomes and continually improve project management practices throughout the company
  
  

What You’ll Need

• 3+ years of experience leading software technology projects (e.g., product development, software development, system implementations) through all phases of the project lifecycle
• Experience working in an agile environment and managing concurrent tasks, projects, and agile teams for software development projects
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, and ability to explain technical problems to a non-technical audience
• Strong interpersonal skills to create professional relationships with colleagues in Tech and other departments to become a trusted partner
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills to aid in the identification of root cause issues and to support team members when impediments arise
• Experience with issue tracking and sprint planning software is required; experience with JIRA preferred
• Ability to collaborate and adapt processes based on the needs of the team
• PMP certification or certified scrum master preferred, but not required
  
  

We are driven by our values. We are relentless contributors, disruptors of the status quo, collaborators, talent cultivators and DEI stewards. Our culture is defined by grit, total integrity and a prioritization on innovation.

We value our people. Click here for more on what we offer and what it’s like to work for POLITICO.

Let’s keep in touch. You can view our list of open positions here and email us [email protected]. We hope to see your application soon!