Technical Project Manager - MD-LABOR

Overall Duties

We are seeking the Project Manager serves as the single point of contact for the State of Maryland Department of Labor (MD Labor) regarding day-to-day IT project operations. The position shall oversee and direct all resources provided under this work order. His/her responsibilities shall include overall project governance, communications with executives, planning, budgeting, execution, monitoring, control, quality assurance and implementing course corrections as needed. The Program Manager is responsible for performing the following:

·       Managing day-to-day project activities.

·       Identifying issues and risks and recommending possible issue and risk mitigation strategies.

·       Facilitating State agency and Contractor discussions / meetings.

·       Ensuring that performance is within scope, consistent with requirements, and delivered on time and within budget.

·       Identifying critical paths, tasks, dates, testing, and acceptance criteria.

·       Ensuring the application of State SDLC standards.

·       Providing solutions to improve efficiency (e.g., reducing costs while maintaining or improving performance levels).

·       Monitoring issues and providing resolutions for up-to-date status reports; and

·       Documenting and delivering project management related artifacts.

 Unlike a traditional project manager focused solely on scheduled deliverables, this position is accountable for ensuring that the entire solution lifecycle is positioned to sustain value and impact beyond just the projects and contract’s finite timeline.

 Product Strategy and Management Duties

·       Create and maintain project plans, aligned with product roadmaps, organize and lead project status and working meetings, prepare and distribute progress reports; manage risks and issues.

·       Create and maintain product artifacts, prioritize and sequence the delivery of features based on value (expected contribution to eliminating pain points and meeting program goals).

·       Manage project content, including policy documentation, business requirements, technical artifacts and code repositories.

·       Develop and sustain a user research pipeline, create research plans and apply research findings to develop service maps and continuously update the product roadmap.

·       Manage a prioritized product backlog in the form of user stories and expected sequencing.

·       Support agency and project leadership in managing expectations for deliverables, maintaining stakeholder communications and collecting, analyzing, and reporting on feedback.

·       Support agency leadership in implementing project governance processes and documenting decisions

Agile Team Management and Team Building Duties

·       Lead delivery of the integrated Grant Accounting and Time Distribution System, establishing clear plans, milestones, and accountability for outcomes.

·       Coordinate with OBFS, vendors, and stakeholders to ensure alignment with federal reporting requirements and State financial policies.

·       Monitor project performance using standard controls to manage scope, schedule, budget, risks, and issues.

·       Facilitate key project activities, including requirements sessions, design reviews, testing cycles, and status meetings.

·       Identify and remove implementation barriers, ensuring effective integration with payroll, FMIS, R*STARS, and reporting systems.

·       Oversee data migration from legacy systems such as FARS, ensuring accuracy of grant accounting and time distribution functions.

·       Promote collaboration and accountability across functional and technical teams, ensuring clear ownership and active participation.

·       Lead change management and user training efforts to support successful system adoption.

·       Maintain comprehensive project documentation, reporting, and post-implementation support to ensure system stabilization.

General Management Duties

·       Monitor schedule, budget compliance, and deliverable quality.

·       Identify, triage, and resolve blockers, including those related to systems, policy constraints, and staffing.

·       Lead planning and ensure delivery of working software using agile, iterative methods that provide direction and documentation for; system design, security, performance, accessibility, and scalability.

·       Support acquisition and procurement processes including defining and reviewing statements of work.

·       Initiate, create and deliver presentations to project stakeholders to manage expectations, demonstrate the delivery of value, foster cross-agency collaboration and secure funding.

·       Ensure implementation of modern engineering best practices, such as DevOps, CI/CD, test-driven development, and observability.

·       Coach and mentor agency staff, vendors, and peers in engineering practices, contributing to long-term capability-building.

·       Communicate technical decisions, risks, and trade-offs clearly and persuasively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Education Qualifications

·       This position requires a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Business Data Science, Business/Public Administration, Design or a related discipline. 

·       Candidates must possess a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI).

 This is a senior individual contributor role, requiring technical familiarity with Mainframes, Timekeeping, and Financial processing systems), strong communication and leadership skills, and the ability to influence agency stakeholders, vendors, and internal teams. 

 General Experience Qualifications

The proposed candidate must have at least ten (10) years of experience in project management.    

Specialized Experience Qualifications

·       The proposed candidate must demonstrate at least eight (8) years of experience managing complex IT development projects, similar to that described in the Statement of Work.

·       This individual must also have experience in a leadership role for at least three (3) successful projects with an organizational change management component that involve working with stakeholder groups across the organization.

·       Candidate must possess at least five (5) years of experience using PMI''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) methodologies and artifacts.