Manager, Planning, Operations, and Delivery

STAR Autism Support has an opening for Manager, Planning, Operations, and Delivery! 

STAR Autism Support (SAS) is a family-founded educational consulting company based in Portland, OR. SAS provides curriculum materials, workshops and training to school and agency staff who work with students with autism and other developmental disabilities. Our unique and practical approach provides school districts with curriculum resources and a continuum of professional development activities to address the educational needs of student’s early childhood through post-secondary throughout the country and internationally. At SAS our goal is to cultivate a supportive, positive and welcoming work environment where all staff can successfully thrive. We value and celebrate equity, diversity, and inclusion. Our vision of equity includes a continuous commitment to becoming an antiracist, multicultural organization. We strive to provide all employees with a culture of curiosity and continued learning.

About the role

Star Autism Support builds curriculum, training, and software for educators teaching students with autism and developmental disabilities. Our projects run across instructional design, print and digital curriculum, software development, and QA. Right now there is no single place to see all of it.

We are creating a planning and delivery function and hiring the person to lead it. It is close to a PMO, with agile coaching as a core part of the job. You will coach teams on agile practice, set up cross-project planning and reporting, track dependencies and risks, and give leadership a reliable view of what is in flight and what is at risk.

You will start as an individual contributor and build a small team of project managers as the function proves out. You will report to the CTO, but the work covers curriculum teams as well, so you will need to earn credibility with leaders who do not report through technology.

Responsibilities

Agile Coaching and Stakeholder Management

• Build trusted relationships across executive leadership, curriculum, product, engineering, and operations teams to align priorities and drive delivery outcomes.
• Coach teams across curriculum, software, and QA on Scrum practice: sprint planning, backlog refinement, estimation, and retrospectives.
• Act as scrum master for one or two teams to start, then hand those duties off as the team grows.
• Adapt agile practice to the type of work. Curriculum has fixed print and school-year deadlines and long review cycles. Software ships continuously. Same principles, different ceremonies.
• Help teams improve how they break down and size work so we can forecast with some confidence.
• Lead organizational adoption of new delivery practices, processes, and tools while balancing consistency with team autonomy.

Planning and Project Tracking

• Maintain a current view of every active project: scope, owner, milestones, status, risks, dependencies.
• Own intake and prioritization so new work starts with clear sponsorship and capacity behind it.
• Track quarterly cross-functional planning where dependencies between curriculum, software, and QA get surfaced and sequenced. Especially where work has to land together for a release or school-year launch.
• Manage risks and issues to resolution, with a named owner on every item.
• Keep project tooling configured so status comes out of the work, not a separate reporting exercise.
• Partner with CTO to evaluate portfolio priorities, trade-offs, capacity constraints, and investment decisions.

Reporting

• Maintain a current view of every active project: scope, owner, milestones, status, risks, dependencies.
• Own intake and prioritization so new work starts with clear sponsorship and capacity behind it.
• Track quarterly cross-functional planning where dependencies between curriculum, software, and QA get surfaced and sequenced. Especially where work has to land together for a release or school-year launch.
• Manage risks and issues to resolution, with a named owner on every item.
• Keep project tooling configured so status comes out of the work, not a separate reporting exercise.
• Partner with CTO to evaluate portfolio priorities, trade-offs, capacity constraints, and investment decisions.

Operations

• Document and maintain delivery standards, templates, and definitions of done. Keep it light enough that teams use it.
• Remove recurring blockers and process friction across departments.
• Run post-project reviews and make sure the findings change something.
• Partner with product, engineering, QA, curriculum, and instructional design leadership.
• Hire and manage the planning and delivery team as it grows.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years in project, program, or delivery management, including leading agile teams.
• Active Scrum certification (CSM, PSM, or equivalent).
• Experience coaching teams and leaders on agile practice, including teams new to it or skeptical of it.
• Experience managing a portfolio of concurrent projects and reporting on it to senior leadership.
• Experience facilitating cross-functional planning discussions and managing programs involving multiple teams and stakeholders.
• Experience implementing project delivery processes, governance frameworks, or operating models.
• Hands-on with agile and project tracking tools, including building dashboards and reports.
• Track record of building process where little exists and keeping it proportionate.
• Strong writing and facilitation skills.
• Comfort working across different kinds of work. You will not be able to treat every team as a software team.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced or scaled agile certification (A-CSM, PSM II, SAFe SPC, ICP-ACC, or PMI-ACP).
• PMP or similar. Much of our curriculum work is deadline-driven and benefits from both toolkits.
• Experience standing up a PMO or delivery function from scratch.
• Experience leading organizational adoption of new processes, tools, or ways of working.
• Experience building KPIs, delivery metrics, scorecards, or dashboards.
• Experience supporting distributed/remote teams. 
• Background covering both software delivery and a non-software discipline such as publishing.
• EdTech, K–12, or publishing experience, including school-year and adoption cycles.
• People management experience, including hiring.
• Interest in special education, applied behavior analysis, or accessibility.

Tools

Examples of what we mean by each area. We are open to your recommendations on what we standardize on.

What to Expect in the First Year

• 60 days: An accurate inventory of every project in flight, with owners, milestones, and a read on which are at risk.
• 6 months: A portfolio view and reporting cadence leadership uses, consistent agile practice on your teams, and an intake process for new work.
• 12 months: More predictable delivery, fewer surprises at milestone dates, a delivery handbook teams reference, and a case for growing the team.

Role Details

• Department: Technology
• Reports to: Chief Technology Officer
• Location: Remote, United States
• Type: Full-Time, Exempt
• Compensation: Annual Base Salary of $130,000 - $150,000

Work Environment 

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. The job is performed in a home office at a workstation with a telephone, headset, and computer. Home offices should be secure, quiet, and distraction-free as possible. Your work area should be ergonomic, clean, safe, and free of obstructions and hazardous situations.

Physical Demands (Capability Requirements)

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to enter text or data into a computer by means of a keyboard. The employee is required to sit for long periods of time. The employee is required to express or exchange ideas verbally to impart oral information and to convey detailed spoken instructions. Specific vision abilities required by this job include clarity of vision including reading small print and the use of computers. Specific hearing abilities required include the ability to hear, understand, and distinguish speech in person and over the phone.

The perks of working with us

Not only are you helping do good in the world, but you will be joining a team of passionate and exceptional people within a casual environment. We offer a full suite of benefits including:

• Retirement plan options with company matching
• Generous paid time off, including paid holidays and office closure days
• Paid COVID-19 sick leave
• Health Insurance Coverage (Medical, Dental, Vision, and Flexible Spending Accounts)
• Life and Disability Insurance options
• Employee Assistance Program

We are a proud Equal Opportunity Employer. STAR Autism Support (SAS) is committed to the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). We celebrate the differences that make each person unique, both at work and in the communities we serve. Using evidence-based practices we strive every day to make positive educational outcomes accessible to all students and educators. This commitment is also foundational to our company culture. We acknowledge that research shows that Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) and women are significantly less likely to apply for some positions, believing they must meet every qualification as described in the job description. At STAR Autism Support, we value representation, and we are most interested in finding the best candidate for the job. We know that sometimes that candidate may be one who comes from a less traditional background. We encourage you to apply, even if you don't believe you meet every one of the qualifications described in the job description.