Director, Project Management
About Nava
Nava is a consultancy and public benefit corporation working to make government services simple, effective, and accessible to all. Since 2013, federal, state, and local government agencies have trusted Nava to build transformative digital services to help people access public benefits. Meeting our mission is an opportunity to restore trust between people and public institutions. We focus on populations that are the least protected because the stakes are higher.
As a client services company, we work with government agencies to improve how people apply for benefits, navigate their health care, and more. We bill for our time, selling our expertise and problem-solving methodology to government clients. Our clients hire us to help improve their products and services so that their users and beneficiaries have a better customer experience.
These end-users—the humans who benefit from our work—are at the core of everything we do. We research beneficiaries’ needs to help our government clients better deliver on their missions, providing everyone at Nava opportunities to do meaningful, impactful work.
The Project Management Director is responsible for leading and growing the Project Management organization and ensuring each contract is executing in the chosen project direction. The incumbent provides strategic guidance and leadership to project managers and others on the development team by helping to shape agile methodology and client service practices for Nava’s contracts. Nava’s Project Management Director oversees hiring, staffing, talent development, and practice development for the team, and provides strategic guidance, leadership, and coaching in support of Nava’s culture and mission: Be Active Stewards, Pursue the Root Cause, Think Long-Term, Build Together, Inclusion is Essential and Progress Takes Work.
What You’ll Do
- Actively contributing to Nava’s revenue growth by supporting and contributing to business development activities
- Providing input on bid opportunity assessments to help Nava decide which bids to pursue
- Assigning subject matter experts from the project management discipline to help Nava submit strong proposals
- Identifying key personnel for business development proposals
- Contributing directly to business development by writing proposals, coaching, participating in market studies, serving on bid challenge teams, and reviewing proposals
- Serving as a strategic partner by influencing and shaping Nava’s approach to growth
- Attending regular Nava leadership meetings to have awareness of Nava’s financial outlook, utilization goals, delivery goals and business development goals
- Collaborating with other delivery leadership to meet company objectives
- Helping shape the delivery organization’s goals
- Driving or contributing to organization goals with members of other delivery leadership
- Representing the needs of the Project Management organization and delivery teams to leadership to ensure we provide the best support to our teams
- Ensuring expectations across all levels are clear to Nava project managers and that they understand competencies
- Leading the performance rating calibration process with other people managers in the project management organization
- Making promotion recommendations based on input from Nava people managers
- Ensuring performance issues are effectively addressed and resolved in a timely manner
- Managing 5-10 direct reports, ensuring that all people managers in the project management organization under expectations of them as people manager
- Participating in Nava’s performance review process as a performance lead and manager of people managers
- Designing the reporting structure for the Project Management team to make optimal use of senior management and ensure all project managers are supported
- Hiring new project managers into Nava to fill open roles
- Being the owner of the interview process for the Project Management department
- Reviewing resumes of candidates and coordinating with the recruiting team on what skills and experience to look for
- Interviewing candidates and providing feedback to panelists
- Reviewing interview feedback to make hiring decisions and determining what salary level should be included in the offer
- Helping Nava achieve Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion goals
- Cultivating Nava’s Project Management practice to ensure project managers are engaged and have the tools they need to lead Delivery successfully
- Ensuring new project managers are effectively on boarded by people managers and colleagues into their responsibilities
- Being a sounding board for all project managers at Nava including celebrating successes and coaching them through challenges
- Leading and continuing efforts to establish Project Management best practices
- Ensuring project managers have access to professional development opportunities to help them develop their skills
- Anticipating general and niche hiring needs and defining and executing a staffing strategy to stay upstream of opportunities, threats, or risks
- Understanding from program directors and program managers what open roles and needs they have including the types of exp needed, level needed, and other requirements
- Meeting with project managers and people managers to understand their skills, interests, and fit for a role
- Working with program management and program directors to negotiate departure of current staff to new programs
Required skills
- At least 8 years of progressive Project Management leadership experience or equivalent experience
- Experience managing complex software delivery efforts in highly constrained environments, including experience overseeing agile software development efforts
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
- 3 years of direct people management experience and team leadership
- Capacity and resilience to develop, build, and grow strong working relationships at all levels of leadership, management, and the organization
- A skilled practitioner with deep experience in creative, strategic, technical, managerial and operational aspects of Project Management at scale
- An extremely adaptable problem solver who can deal with multi-dimensional challenges involving many organizations, processes, cultures, and technologies.
- In-depth experience cultivating strong relationships with external stakeholders and partners
- Experience with fast-growing companies, with a bonus for experience within government contracting or professional service firms
- An adaptive, empathetic, collaborative leadership mindset
- Excellent organizational skills and effective presentation skills
- Excellent written and verbal communication
Desired skills
- Experience managing the business dynamics in a professional services firm (billable hours, contract portfolios, client services skills)
- Experience and bias toward a “company-builder” frame of mind
- Track record of introducing and expanding agile transformation and pursuing best practices in Project Management with clients and stakeholders
$159,300 - $177,000 a year
Other requirements
The individual working in this position:
● Must be legally authorized to work in the United States and meet any other requirements for government contracts for which they are hired.
● Candidates who are offered a job with Nava must possess work authorization that does not require sponsorship by their employer for a visa now or in the future.
● May be subject to a government security investigation and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information or applicants who are eligible for security clearances.
Perks working with Nava
● Your well-being is important to us, so we offer highly competitive benefits for medical, dental, and vision
● 20 days of PTO accrued, 12 days paid federal holidays, 5 floating holidays, unlimited sick leave
● 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave and weekly meal deliveries during leave
● Comprehensive Employee Wellness Program
● Virtual Doctor visits with zero copay through UHC
● Fertility Support and Treatment
● Sabbatical Leave
● 401k contributions match at 4% of your salary
● Flexible work arrangements
● Home office budget and monthly phone allowance
● Monthly partial reimbursement for utilities (where applicable)
● Comprehensive learning and development program
● $2,000 annual tuition and professional development budget, on top of a LinkedIn Learning license
● Equity stock options
● Employee referral program
● Commuter Benefits
● Short and Long-Term Disability Insurance
● Life and Accidental Death Insurance
● Diverse, inclusive, highly collaborative, and vibrant culture, fostering remote work!
Location
You can work in a hybrid work arrangement from one of Nava’s offices in NYC, DC, or San Francisco. We also have fully remote options if you reside in one of the following states:
Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, DC, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin.
*If you are not living in one of the states listed above, unfortunately, you will not be considered for a position at this time.
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Nava PBC equal opportunity employer that is deeply committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, color, age, gender, religious or political beliefs, national origin or heritage, marital status, disability, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, genetic information, pregnancy, status as a protected veteran or any characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. Our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion not only reflects our values as a public benefit corporation but also enriches our ability to do our work. Learn more about where we are today and hope to be by 2025.
Please contact the recruiting team at recruiting@navapbc.com if you would like to request reasonable accommodation during the application or interviewing process.
We participate in E-Verify. Upon hire, we will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. This role is required to work from the contiguous United States.