Program Manager, PDLC

About the role

Vasion is adopting a Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC), a cross-company operating model designed to bring just enough structure to how we build and ship software. As a Program Manager on the PDLC team, you will be embedded across engineering and product management teams as a practitioner, coach, and change agent helping teams not just follow the PDLC, but understand it, trust it, and work inside it naturally.

What You Will Do

• PDLC Adoption and Change Enablement:

  • Operate as an embedded PDLC practitioner, modeling the framework and helping cross-functional partners understand why it exists and how to use it
  • Coach engineering and product management team members on PDLC practices by meeting them where they are, not where the playbook says they should be
  • Build trust through consistency, follow-through, and genuine partnership, not process authority
  • Communicate the value of the PDLC to engineering clearly and often: reduced context-switching, clearer scope handoffs, fewer rebuilds, better predictability

• PDLC Framework Contribution and Development:

  • Partner with the VP of Program Managers to build, document, and refine processes, templates, stage gate criteria, and governance standards
  • Develop and maintain playbooks and documentation that make the PDLC accessible across Product Management and Engineering
  • Translate on-the-ground experience into framework improvements

• End-to-End Program Management:

  • Own the full lifecycle of assigned programs from Discovery through Grow: scope, timelines, milestones, dependencies, and deliverables at every stage
  • Build program plans that give Product Management, Engineering, Design, QA, and Go-to-Market a shared view of what is happening, what is next, and who owns what
  • Stay ahead of risks and blockers; bring well-reasoned options to the VP before problems compound
  • Facilitate kick-offs, stage gate reviews, cross-functional syncs, and retrospectives to drive clear outcomes and documented next steps every time

• Cross-Functional Alignment and Communication:

  • Serve as the day-to-day coordination point between Product Management, Engineering, Design, QA, and Go-to-Market for programs in your portfolio
  • Surface and resolve cross-team misalignments and dependency conflicts before they impact delivery

• Reporting and Documentation:

  • Maintain accurate, up-to-date program documentation throughout the full lifecycle
  • Treat documentation as a core part of program quality in order to make programs reproducible, learnable, and increasingly agent-ready

Requirements

• 5-8 years of program management experience in software, at the program level across multiple teams
• Cross-functional programs through multiple phases of a product or software development lifecycle
• Embedded directly within engineering and/or product management teams, not a centralized PMO
• Participated in or drove a process or operating model change
• Fluency with Atlassian (Jira/Confluence), Notion, and/or Adobe Workfront
• B2B SaaS or enterprise software experience strongly preferred

Preferred Experience

• Dual-track agile, Shape Up, OKR-based planning, or similar lean frameworks
• Product management discovery concepts: opportunity mapping, user story mapping, hypothesis-driven development
• Supported both product management and engineering within the same organization
• High-growth or PE-backed software environment

Skills And Attributes

• Drives alignment through credibility and partnership, not role authority
• Understands why a process step exists and can explain it plainly to skeptical teams
• Decomposes complex initiatives into legible phases without over-engineering
• Genuinely curious about AI and already using it
• Treats friction as information, not failure
• Cares about the outcome more than the credit

Why This Role, Why Now

Vasion is building something most growing software companies underinvest in until it is too late: a mature, scalable, and genuinely useful Product Development Life Cycle. You would be joining at the ground floor of that build, working directly alongside a VP invested in your development, on programs visible across the entire Product and Engineering organization, in a culture that rewards initiative and ownership.

Benefits

• Flexible work environment
• Discretionary Vacation Bonus
• Flexible paid time off
• Paid parental leave
• Competitive pay
• A full suite of traditional benefits
• Training/Advancement opportunities
• 401k with company match and immediate vesting
• Mental Wellness Support
• Company-contributed HSA
• Onsite perks include gym, pickleball, snacks & drinks, arcade, theater room, etc

Core Values

• Disruptive Visionaries: Our customers are the heroes, and our role is to be a guide on their journey, truly listening and identifying the needs and wants of our customers
• Relationship Builders: We treat people as people, building strong relationships through empathy, compassion, and honest communication
• Candor Seekers: Candid conversations are critical to achieving objectives, and we nurture a culture of caring personally and challenging directly
• Action Owners: Every employee takes ownership of any failures and develops a plan to win, no matter their tenure or circumstance