Senior Project Manager
Rocket Software · San Jose
It's fun to work in a company where people truly BELIEVE in what they're doing!
Job Description Summary:
As a Senior Project Manager at Rocket Software, you will lead the delivery of complex customer-facing professional services engagements across Rocket’s solutions portfolio. Projects may vary in size, delivery model, technical scope, and geographic reach. You will coordinate cross-functional teams to deliver agreed outcomes while managing scope, schedule, budget, resources, quality, and risk.A strong technical orientation and the ability to learn diverse products, platforms, and customer environments are important. You will translate contractual commitments and customer objectives into practical delivery plans, establish clear governance, and maintain alignment throughout the engagement. You will collaborate with consultants, engineers, customers, Sales, Solutioning, Customer Success, Product Development, Support, and senior leadership while promoting transparency, accountability, and timely decision-making.
As part of the Rocket team, you will exemplify our core values of Empathy, Humanity, Trust, and Love in every interaction. You will contribute to the continuous improvement of project management practices, help simplify complex delivery challenges, and create exceptional customer experiences that support measurable business and technology outcomes.
Key Responsibilities
Project Delivery Excellence and Customer Experience
- Own the full project lifecycle for complex, high-risk, or multi-region professional services engagements, managing timelines, deliverables, dependencies, resources, and quality standards.
- Define and document clear project scope, objectives, success criteria, assumptions, constraints, and responsibilities, and actively manage changes to prevent uncontrolled scope expansion.
- Apply Rocket’s project management framework and tailor delivery practices to the engagement’s size, complexity, contract type, and customer needs.
- Plan and facilitate internal initiation, customer kickoff, requirements and planning sessions, status meetings, steering reviews, and project closure activities.
- Serve as the primary project interface for customers, building trust through transparency, responsiveness, accountability, and consistent follow-through.
- Identify, assess, document, and manage risks, issues, decisions, dependencies, and actions. Escalate promptly when resolution requires management or cross-functional support.
- Maintain clear project records and provide stakeholders with timely visibility into progress, financial health, risks, decisions, and next steps.
Financial Management and Portfolio Delivery
- Align project resources, schedules, delivery plans, and financial parameters with contractual commitments and approved scope.
- Maintain accurate forecasts for services revenue, resource demand, project completion, and remaining effort, updating assumptions as conditions change.
- Monitor budget, burn, margin considerations, milestones, and revenue recognition inputs, and address variances before they become material delivery concerns.
- Communicate clearly with customers and internal stakeholders about scope, timelines, responsibilities, constraints, and risks that may affect delivery or cost.
- Partner with Sales and Solutioning to identify legitimate follow-on needs and ensure potential opportunities are evaluated through the appropriate commercial and delivery processes.
- Manage a balanced portfolio of engagements, prioritizing work and resource needs while protecting delivery quality and customer commitments.
Operational Excellence and Continuous Improvement
- Follow and help improve standardized policies, procedures, templates, and best practices that support consistent, high-quality project delivery.
- Track relevant key performance indicators and project data to identify trends, emerging risks, delivery constraints, and improvement opportunities.
- Use data and lessons learned to refine delivery approaches, improve predictability, and reduce avoidable complexity, cost, and delay.
- Establish appropriate governance and reporting cadences based on project complexity, customer needs, and risk profile.
- Contribute practical feedback, reusable knowledge, and lessons learned to strengthen PMO methods and cross-functional delivery practices.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Partner with Account Executives throughout delivery to maintain account alignment, address customer concerns, and support timely escalation and resolution.
- Collaborate with Solutioning and Delivery Engineering to confirm scope intent, resource needs, assumptions, and delivery readiness.
- Work with Product Development, Product Engineering, Support, and Customer Success when product direction, defects, adoption, or ongoing customer outcomes affect the engagement.
- Facilitate effective communication between technical and business stakeholders, translating complex information into clear decisions, actions, and priorities.
- Build strong working relationships across functions and regions to remove blockers and keep commitments visible and actionable.
Requirements
Education and Certifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Project Management, Information Technology, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
- Project management certification such as PMP, PgMP, or PRINCE2 is preferred.
- Change management, cloud, IT service management, or other relevant certifications are helpful but not required.
Experience
- 12+ years of progressive project or program management experience, preferably in a customer-facing professional services, software, SaaS, technology, or consulting environment.
- Demonstrated success leading complex engagements involving cross-functional teams, multiple stakeholders, competing priorities, and material delivery risk.
- Experience managing project financials, forecasts, budgets, contracts, change control, and revenue-related delivery inputs.
- Experience working with senior customer and internal stakeholders and communicating clearly at executive, business, and technical levels.
- Experience mentoring project managers or guiding project teams is preferred.
Skills and Competencies
Leadership and Collaboration
- Executive-level written, verbal, and presentation skills.
- Strong facilitation, negotiation, conflict-resolution, and stakeholder-management capabilities.
- Calm, accountable leadership in ambiguous, high-pressure, or changing delivery situations.
- Ability to influence across functions without relying on direct authority.
Project Delivery and Strategy
- Advanced project planning, scheduling, governance, dependency management, risk management, and change control.
- Ability to tailor project delivery and governance practices to the engagement’s scope, complexity, risk profile, contract type, and customer needs.
- Resource optimization and portfolio-prioritization skills.
- Focus on customer outcomes, delivery predictability, quality, and time to value.
Financial and Operational Acumen
- Strong understanding of professional services financial management and revenue recognition principles.
- Experience with budgeting, forecasting, performance monitoring, and variance management.
- Ability to analyze complex operational challenges, identify root causes, and drive practical corrective action.
- Strong attention to detail, documentation, data quality, and follow-through.
Collaboration Network
- CSE Project Management Office and Delivery Engineering
- Sales, Account Management, Solutioning, and Pre-Sales teams
- Product Development, Product Engineering, and Support
- Customer Success
- Customer business, technical, and executive stakeholders
- External partners and vendors, when applicable
Communication Requirements
- Maintain regular communication with PMO management and relevant cross-functional teams.
- Provide timely updates on critical milestones, risks, scope or schedule changes, financial status, and revenue recognition inputs.
- Escalate material delivery concerns with clear facts, business impact, options, and recommended actions.
Information Security
Information security is everyone’s responsibility. A fundamental principle of information security at Rocket Software is that all individuals in the organization are responsible for the security and protection of company information and IT resources under their control, consistent with their role.
Diversity, Inclusion and Equity
At Rocket, we are committed to an inclusive workplace where every Rocketeer can thrive by bringing their full self to work. Being a Rocketeer means contributing to our ongoing commitment to inclusivity, diversity, and equity across our workforce.
#LI-SG1
.Rocket Software Inc. is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. Rocket Software Inc. is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.
At Rocket Software, we believe AI is a critical enabler of innovation and productivity. All Rocketeers are expected to actively leverage AI-powered tools and technologies, where appropriate, to enhance efficiency, improve decision-making, and deliver greater impact in their roles. Embracing continuous learning and the responsible use of AI is an essential part of how we work.
As part of our commitment to a safe and trustworthy workplace, we include background and reference checks in our hiring process.
Rocket is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. If you need special assistance or an accommodation while seeking employment, please call: 781-577-4321 or send an email to people@rocketsoftware.com. We will make a determination on your request for reasonable accommodation on a case-by-case basis.
If you like wild growth and working with happy, enthusiastic over-achievers, you'll enjoy your career with us!