Program Manager

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What to know

As a Contract Program Manager (Digital, Websites) at Blue State, you’ll lead website development and technical consulting projects from start to finish and help nonprofits and progressive organizations to reimagine how they engage audiences through their websites and digital marketing platforms. You’ll manage stakeholder relationships and work closely with our Tech, Strategy, Design, and Analytics teams to conduct user research, identify product requirements, create sprint plans, and test and iterate on deliverables for Blue State’s unique portfolio of clients. A Program Manager at Blue State is a generalist who creates connections between stakeholders, strategists, designers, engineers, analysts, and content producers

The company

Blue State is a purpose-driven agency. We partner with leading causes, brands, and campaigns and create real change. From AARP and Doctors Without Borders to Amnesty International and Oxfam, we transform how brands and causes raise money, influence policy, build platforms, and grow communities of supporters. Led by the most creative and analytical minds from the political, nonprofit, and brand worlds, Blue State is an independent agency in the US and London.

A day in the life

• Manage budgets and timelines for website redesigns and other digital projects, including defining scopes and gathering estimates across disciplines.
• Distill clients’ goals and priorities through interviews, workshops, analytics, platform audits, and other forms of research.
• Write and maintain requirements, ensuring that all functionality, user flows, and edge cases are understood by stakeholders. Documentation could range from lofi sketches to detailed acceptance criteria
• Minimize exposure to risk on a project by identifying potential scope creep and working with internal teams and client stakeholders to mitigate this risk
• Help create sprint plans and release schedules.
• Develop testing and measurement plans in coordination with strategists and analysts.
• Manage multiple website build projects simultaneously and understand project priorities in the context of agency and client expectations
• Manage stakeholder feedback, evaluating all proposed features against the product scope and ensuring that bugs are reported and prioritized correctly. Provide creative recommendations based on your technical expertise when features don’t fit in the budget. Make the tough calls when scope needs to be cut.
• Support the greater Business Development team with the scoping of new client product engagements. Estimate effort, ensure that team members are aligned on what’s being proposed, and guard against proposals that aren’t feasible.
• Manage operational aspects of projects, including communication of client needs to team and vice versa as well as resourcing and financial health tracking.
• Lead project status meetings and updates with internal teams and clients.
• Use AI to accelerate your work such as writing requirements or organizing inputs.

We approach in-office working with a hybrid model. On-site presence is welcome for US staff who are within commuting distance of the NY or DC office. Managers retain discretion to require in-person attendance for folks on their discipline or client teams as necessary, including for those whose roles require them to be in person. To enter our US offices or attend Blue State events, staff and visitors must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, including with a booster shot when eligible. Exceptions for protected grounds will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

The salary range for this position is $60-$90 per hour; compensation will be commensurate with experience.

The team

You’ll be a part of our global website development practice that consists of designers, developers, strategists, and other creative folks. We’re veterans of presidential campaigns, agencies, nonprofits, and the tech world who want our work to matter, are passionate about technology, and aim to continually improve the work we do. We collaborate very closely remotely and, optionally, from our offices in New York, DC, and London.

Some things we're looking for

1. 3+ years of experience in program management or similar roles such as product management or technical project management.
2. Experience with CMS-driven websites, such as those built on WordPress. You will not architect a WordPress site yourself, but you help steer designers and engineers in directions that are feasible and align with client goals.
3. Familiarity with and interest in marketing platforms, including CRMs, and data and personalization technology used by organizations to engage and mobilize their supporters.
4. Willingness to wear multiple hats and get into the weeds in order to reach a milestone, whether that means logging into the CMS to fix content, sketching a quick feature to clarify a proposal, or having a difficult conversation with a vendor.
5. Ability to use wireframes to communicate recommendations to design teams.
6. Cognizance of the overall AI landscape and the ability to evaluate AI outputs critically.
7. Excellent communication skills. Ability to interact with engineers, designers, and business stakeholders alike.
8. Strong collaborator and relationship builder. Colleagues know they can come to you for help working through delicate issues or opportunities.
9. Empathy, positivity, respect, and the ability to be a role model at Blue State.

At Blue State, diversity is a necessity, not a nice-to-have. We encourage those from underrepresented communities — women, people of color, LGBTQIA+, immigrants, those with disabilities and people at all the intersections in between — to apply. Even if you don’t think your current skill set checks every box below, but this role seems to align with your strengths, we want to hear from you.

Blue State is committed to creating an inclusive and accessible application and interview process. If you would like to request a reasonable accommodation for a disability, please contact us at recruiting@bluestate.co with the subject line: Accommodation Request to get started.

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