Technical Program Manager

As Technical Program Manager for Data Engineering, you’ll own the end-to-end coordination of our most complex and cross-functional data initiatives. You’ll work directly alongside data engineers, software engineers, analytics leads, and product and business stakeholders to keep projects scoped, resourced, on track, and visible across the organization. This isn’t a traditional project manager role. You’ll need genuine fluency in data engineering concepts - pipeline architecture, data quality, schema design, orchestration workflows - so you can navigate technical tradeoffs, ask the right questions, and earn the trust of the engineers you’re working with. At the same time, you’ll bring the program management rigor that a fast-scaling data team needs: clear processes, reliable reporting, and strong stakeholder alignment., Program & Project Management

• Own the planning, execution, and delivery of data engineering projects, including pipeline development, schema migrations, platform integrations, and data quality initiatives
• Define and maintain project plans, milestones, and dependencies in Jira, ensuring work is accurately tracked and consistently reflected across epics, stories, and sprints
• Lead sprint ceremonies - planning, standup, review, and retrospective - for data engineering teams, facilitating discussions and driving toward actionable outcomes
• Proactively identify blockers, surface trade-offs, and escalate risks before they become delivery problems
• Manage project scope and change requests with discipline, maintaining alignment between technical execution and business intent

Stakeholder Coordination

• Serve as the primary coordination layer between data engineering and the engineering, analytics, product, and operations teams that depend on its outputs
• Translate business requirements from non-technical stakeholders into well-scoped technical work, and communicate technical decisions and trade-offs back in terms stakeholders can act on
• Build and maintain lightweight RACI structures and communication norms across projects to reduce ambiguity and keep everyone aligned
• Facilitate cross-team prioritization conversations, especially where data deliverables are on the critical path of a larger product or engineering initiative

Metrics, Reporting & Visibility

• Design and maintain team and project metrics reports using Jira, covering velocity, throughput, cycle time, sprint completion rates, and SLA adherence for data pipelines
• Build and own recurring reporting cadences - weekly status updates, executive dashboards, and quarterly program reviews - that give leadership clear, accurate visibility into data engineering health and progress
• Partner with data engineers to instrument pipeline monitoring and tie operational health metrics into project-level reporting
• Use metrics to identify systemic inefficiencies, recurring blockers, or estimation drift, and bring data-driven recommendations to planning

Process & Team Enablement

• Own and continuously improve the team’s ways of working - Jira hygiene standards, sprint norms, documentation practices, and intake processes for new project requests
• Develop and maintain internal playbooks for common project types (e.g., new pipeline builds, data migrations, client onboarding workflows) to reduce ramp time and increase consistency
• Help the data engineering team operate with more autonomy by reducing process overhead, improving tooling, and keeping noise away from technical work

Do you have experience in Tooling?, * 5+ years of experience in technical program management, with direct ownership of software or data engineering programs

• Deep, hands-on proficiency with Jira - including advanced board configuration, JQL, custom fields, workflow automation, and building reports and dashboards using built-in tools or Jira’s reporting APIs
• Demonstrated experience building and owning project and team metrics programs - not just tracking tasks, but designing reporting frameworks that drive decisions
• Sufficient technical depth in data engineering to hold substantive conversations with engineers about pipeline architecture, orchestration, data quality, and schema design - and to understand the implications of technical decisions on project timelines
• Proven track record of coordinating complex, cross-functional projects across engineering, product, analytics, and business stakeholders
• Strong written and verbal communication skills - you write clear status updates, facilitate productive meetings, and adapt your communication style for technical and non-technical audiences
• Experience with agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, or hybrid), including running ceremonies and continuously improving team process
• Comfort with ambiguity and a bias toward action - you drive clarity rather than waiting for it, * Hands-on experience with AWS data services (Step Functions, Glue, S3, Athena, Lambda) at a conceptual or operational level
• Familiarity with data lakehouse concepts, medallion architecture, or data quality frameworks (Great Expectations, Soda)
• Experience working in a GovTech, SaaS, or data-platform company
• Exposure to Confluence, Notion, or similar tools for managing team documentation alongside Jira
• Experience with data observability or pipeline monitoring tools (Monte Carlo, Datafold, or similar)

Pulled from the full job description

• Health insurance
• 401(k) matching
• Paid time off
• Vision insurance
• Dental insurance
• Paid holidays, Where You’ll Work
• Omaha-based? You’ll follow our hybrid model: work remotely with in-office collaboration on Tuesdays and Thursdays
• Remote? You’ll be fully supported to work from anywhere in the U.S. We prioritize connected, accountable teams - no matter where you’re located

Compensation & Benefits

• Base Salary Range: $120,000-$160,000
• Full medical, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k) with company match
• PTO and paid holidays
• A collaborative team culture that values autonomy, growth, and execution

gWorks builds software that helps small local governments work better. Our clients are public servants, city clerks, utility billing staff, public works teams, and county administrators. These are the folks who keep their communities running smoothly. Their work is essential, but often constrained by outdated tools. We fix that. Our cloud-based platform replaces legacy systems with simple, integrated software built specifically for small governments. We serve thousands of communities nationwide, streamlining operations, improving service delivery, and making day-to-day work more manageable.

We’re consolidating several acquired products into one platform and guiding our clients through this transition. It’s complex, important work that requires a team that can execute at a high level to help drive that transformation.