Job#: 3026676 Job Description: Site Reliability Engineering
Program Manager Location: Chicago, Illinois (Remote)
Employment Type: Contract
Role Overview
We are seeking a senior, hands-on Program Manager with deep enterprise experience to lead and integrate SRE deliverables at scale. This role will orchestrate technology workstreams across application and infrastructure teams, manage vendor and contractor relationships, and present to senior leadership. The Program Manager is expected to deliver reliability and observability outcomes, exercise delivery judgment, identify architectural and dependency risks, and ensure SRE outcomes are operationalized.
Key Responsibilities
- Own the integrated delivery plan for SRE deliverables, sequencing workstreams, defining milestones, and managing dependencies across multiple teams and vendors.
- Drive SRE outcomes, including runbook maturity, SLO/SLI definition, incident management maturity, alert tuning, and resilience engineering across applications and platforms.
- Maintain program governance artifacts such as the integrated program plan, RAID logs, dependency tracking, and decision logs.
- Provide concise and credible status and risk updates to executive steering committees.
- Collaborate with the Observability team, Platform Operations, and application owners to translate architecture risk into delivery mitigations.
- Integrate many independent workstreams and hold teams accountable to commitments.
- Coordinate project managers, vendors, and independent teams into a unified delivery plan.
- Actively identify, escalate, and mitigate risks and dependencies to prevent delays or scope impacts.
- Manage project-level tracking and reporting artifacts, including weekly integrated status, an operational readiness dashboard, and daily status reporting during change windows.
Required Qualifications
Experience:- 3+ years as a Senior Program Manager leading large, multi-workstream technology initiatives, with experience in parallel workstreams and vendor ecosystems.
- 7+ years of overall experience in application or infrastructure delivery with proven exposure to SRE or observability programs.
- Experience managing enterprise programs where SRE delivered outcomes such as SLO/SLI adoption, incident management, and platform hardening.
- Proven track record of presenting to VP/SVP level executive forums and maintaining program governance artifacts for executive consumption.
Competencies:- Fluent in both business and technical domains, with the ability to understand architecture and dependency models to identify delivery risks.
- Confident communicator with strong executive presence, capable of delivering concise updates and constructively pushing back on unrealistic plans.
- Effective across mixed delivery models, legacy and modern tech stacks, and organizational complexity while maintaining delivery momentum.
- Maintains clarity, organization, and forward progress amid ambiguity, competing priorities, and high-visibility scrutiny.
Compensation & Benefits
The pay rate for this position is between $75.00 and $90.00 per hour. Contract-based benefits are available.
We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.
Apex uses a virtual recruiter as part of the application process. Click for more details.
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Apex Systems is a world-class IT services company that serves thousands of clients across the globe. When you join Apex, you become part of a team that values innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning. We offer quality career resources, training, certifications, development opportunities, and a comprehensive benefits package. Our commitment to excellence is reflected in many awards, including ClearlyRated's Best of Staffing in Talent Satisfaction in the United States and Great Place to Work in the United Kingdom and Mexico. Apex uses a virtual recruiter as part of the application process. Click for more details.
Apex Benefits Overview: Apex offers a range of supplemental benefits, including medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and other insurance plans that offer an optional layer of financial protection. We offer an ESPP (employee stock purchase program) and a 401K program which allows you to contribute typically within 30 days of starting, with a company match after 12 months of tenure. Apex also offers a HSA (Health Savings Account on the HDHP plan), a SupportLinc Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with up to 8 free counseling sessions, a corporate discount savings program and other discounts. In terms of professional development, Apex hosts an on-demand training program, provides access to certification prep and a library of technical and leadership courses/books/seminars once you have 6+ months of tenure, and certification discounts and other perks to associations that include CompTIA and IIBA. Apex has a dedicated customer service team for our Consultants that can address questions around benefits and other resources, as well as a certified Career Coach. You can access a full list of our benefits, programs, support teams and resources within our 'Welcome Packet' as well, which an Apex team member can provide.
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