Project Manager Sr

Job Summary

Manages projects in accordance with established project governance. Plans, directs and coordinates activities of assigned projects for designated IT or Business area, to ensure that goals and approved scope are accomplished within the prescribed time frame and funding parameters. Develops, manages and coordinates project plans of different degrees of complexity. Manages a detailed work breakdown, resource commitments, budget, risks, and communication for each phase of the project, as required by project governance. Partners with the project Business Owner and Technical Lead on project delivery strategy, providing focus on transparency and project controls.

Job Duties

• Understands and applies principles, theories and concepts related to the profession and ERCOT's culture.
• Exercises judgment within defined procedures and practices to determine appropriate action.
• Impact is generally limited to specific assignments or projects.
• May respond to inquiries and/or provide assistance and/or guidance to lower level workers.

Additional Job Duties

• Learns and leads multiple medium/high complexity projects simultaneously, maintaining deep engagement across all workstreams and resource pools, under supervision of PMO management.
• Pairs with the project business owner, and technical lead to determine the delivery strategy, provide direction to the project team, and drive stakeholder awareness.
• Provides concise executive-level communication and recommendations to sponsors, steering committees, and senior leadership.
• Manages complex team dynamics, effectively facilitates conflict resolution, conducts negotiations, and achieves organizational objectives through strategic influence absent formal authority, with support from PMO management.
• Engages the project team to drive delivery by facilitating decisions, resolving blockers, identifying risks, issues, and mitigation plans, and maintaining momentum across workstreams, project team members, vendors, and stakeholders.
• Navigates a matrixed resource environment, negotiating resource commitments with resource and project managers across competing project priorities.
• Manages external dependencies across teams, systems, and delivery timelines to maintain schedule integrity and risk management.
• Identifies and manages cross-project and cross-program dependencies that may impact scope, schedule, cost, or business outcomes.
• Escalates issues appropriately and facilitate timely decision-making among stakeholders when priorities or requirements conflict.
• Conducts deep scope analysis to develop and maintain a detailed, accurate work breakdown structure throughout the project lifecycle.
• Maintains a current and accurate project plan at all times, reflecting real resource assignments, actual progress, and updated forecasts.
• Maintains reasonable variance between cost forecasts and actuals, with timely explanations for deviations.
• Collaborates with business stakeholders to support organizational readiness, adoption planning, and implementation activities.
• Maintains timesheet compliance across the project team, including reviewing and approving or rejecting weekly time submissions.
• Utilizes existing and emerging technologies to drive efficient and effective project operations, including collaboration and productivity tools, AI, data analysis, and PPM tooling.
• Operates effectively within a highly regulated, audit-conscious environment, ensuring project documentation, compliance artifacts, and reporting meet organizational and regulatory standards.
• Supports PMO continuous improvement initiatives, as assigned.
• Supports PMO sponsored projects or other initiatives, as assigned.
• Fosters a project culture aligned with ERCOT’s core values.

Experience

• Minimum 5 years related work experience managing projects, product or workstream delivery, in excess of degree requirements (Required).
• Experience as a project manager within a formal enterprise PMO, including structured phase-gate governance and tollgate approval processes and accountability for executive engagement.
• Experience managing medium/high complexity projects with cross-functional resource pools.
• Experience working within a matrixed organization, including resource negotiation and shared-service delivery models.
• Experience operating in a highly regulated, audit-conscious environment with formal documentation, compliance, and reporting requirements.
• Experience managing projects using traditional waterfall and hybrid methodologies within a structured phase-gate governance framework.
• Working experience at an ISO/RTO, ISO/RTO stakeholder, or Electric Utility environment (Preferred).
• Proficiency in a Project Management scheduling tool such as Microsoft Project, as well as practical experience using a project ticketing and workflow system such as JIRA. (Required).
• Proficiency in AI prompt design. (Preferred).

Education

• Bachelor’s Degree: Business, Management, Engineering, IT, or related field (Required).
• Or a combination of education and experience that provides equivalent knowledge to a major in such fields is required.

Certification

• PMP Project Management Professional (Preferred).
• Agile and Scrum certifications (Optional).
• Organizational Change Management certifications (Optional).
• Lean Six Sigma certifications (Optional).

Experience in Specific Areas

• Digital & ERP Projects - IT infrastructure projects, including data center refresh, compute and storage upgrades, network modernization, or fiber expansion.
• Enterprise application implementations, migrations, or end-of-life system replacements.
• Cybersecurity or compliance-driven initiatives, including security assessments, endpoint protection, or regulatory standard alignment.
• Identity and access management (IAM) projects, including governance, provisioning, or access control implementations.
• Enterprise data, AI, or toolchain modernization initiatives, including data governance, platform migrations, or developer tooling.
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Treasury, and Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) projects.
• ERCOT ISO Operations & Regulatory Projects: Commercial operations or market systems projects, including customer registration, forward and real-time wholesale market, wholesale settlement, and retail market applications.
• Grid system interconnection, planning, and operations projects, including forecasting, network modeling, and energy management systems and tools.
• External stakeholder and customer platform projects, including websites and user portals.