Program Manager

Overview

DrivenData brings the transformative power of data science and AI to organizations tackling the world’s biggest challenges. 

We are looking for a Program Manager to join our growing team. As an organization, we always have many projects running at a time—some are online AI challenges with social impact, and others are direct work with mission-driven organizations. We’re looking for a Program Manager to manage the effective delivery of active projects and support team and organizations priorities as we grow.

Half of the job will be about setting the organization up for success through cross-team planning, communications, and organization development. You will work with the Senior Program Manager to coordinate project needs, support team meetings, execute initiatives, and develop ideas for continuing improvement in how we operate and deliver work of quality and impact. As a core part of a small team, you will help to build out the organization’s capabilities to work across projects and support learning and growth.

The other half will be hands-on work on particular projects where you are collaborating with our data scientists and clients to deliver high-quality work on time. A typical set of responsibilities for a project may be interviewing stakeholders to deeply understand the problem domain, coordinating with clients on timelines, priorities, and scope, planning a set of work that meets the organization’s need, running regular triage meetings and checking in with engineers on status, and drafting presentations to communicate results with the client. You will help ensure project success by coordinating the right resources and managing client relationships.

We pride ourselves on being a great place to work and to learn. We take the development of our team members very seriously and we value the priorities that we each have in our lives at work and outside of work. We like to tackle problems that matter as a team. We help each other develop high-quality, user-focused solutions that actually solve a real client problem. Finally, we believe the work we do should positively impact people’s lives.

We’re different because we focus on delivering solutions. We are not a research lab or product company—instead, we work directly with organizations to build data and AI capabilities that they can start using now.

This is a full-time role based remotely in the U.S.

Compensation range commensurate with experience, expected $70,000 - $100,000.

Additional details

• Experience developing and managing new project opportunities in data science or open innovation
• Experience interacting with data science and AI teams and the complexities that data introduces into the engineering process
• Experience as a PM for software teams and the best practices that enable high-quality engineering output
• Working on a small team means doing a little bit of a lot of things. We're looking for somebody who can ask the right questions to figure out what is important, iterate between brainstorming together, working independently, and managing data scientists, and exercise sound judgment to make reasonable decisions under ambiguity.
• Communication is a core data science skill at DrivenData. Doing client-facing work involves articulating concepts, interpreting results, and selecting the method that satisfies the constraints of the project.
• Working with organizations that are not experts in data science and AI means we need to turn uncertainty into a reasonable path forward. As a team, we value somebody who will present justified opinions and engage in a discussion around the best way forward—especially when that takes into account the broader context of the project.
• We value a positive attitude and the ability to adapt, learn, and collaborate.
• We embrace the individuality of our employees and we celebrate each other's differences. Our work benefits from and thrives on the unique perspectives brought by each person on our team. We're proud to be an equal opportunity workplace, and we are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, age, sex, color, ancestry, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, citizenship, marital status, disability, or Veteran status.

Here are some of the things you'd be doing on an ordinary day:

• Coordinating with data scientists on the team to plan and execute data science projects
• Meeting with clients to understand their needs and coordinate the design of a solution that works. Sometimes this is a competition on our drivendata.org platform, sometimes this is a report or deck with analysis, and sometimes it is production software.
• Ensuring that the current plan fits into the planned time and budget and negotiating changes to scoped work, budgets, or resources where necessary
• Translating the results of analysis into implications for people and problems by scaffolding presentations or reports on the work
• Communicating with our team, clients, and challenge community
• Carrying forward initiatives to improve how the organizations operates and the impact we have through our work
• Supporting the team and enabling them to do their best work

Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States.

Critical skills

• Strong organizational skills and a drive to make projects better by removing ambiguity
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills
• Experience managing projects in data science, software, or open innovation
• Conversant in core tools, practices, and methods in data science and software engineering
• Experience working with messy data and real-world applications

Nice to have

• Experience managing data science and AI projects
• Experience with government clients and proposals
• Domain experience in social impact sectors
• Experience in a client services and/or consulting role
• Experience with production machine learning systems

We offer competitive salary and benefits including flexible work and unlimited vacation, health coverage, 401(k) matching, and choice in the computing equipment you use.

Equal opportunity

DrivenData is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin.