Senior Engineering Program Manager

Engineering Program Manager

Location: Dearborn, MI.
Type: W2 Contract | No C2C | NO Corp-2-corp
Pay Range: $53-58 an hour

Position Overview

We are seeking an experienced Engineering Program Manager (EPM) to drive delivery execution, planning, and prioritization across cross-functional engineering teams. This role requires someone who excels at bringing structure to ambiguity, creating alignment among stakeholders, and ensuring delivery commitments are realistic, transparent, and consistently achieved.

The ideal candidate combines strong program and project management expertise with Agile delivery experience, exceptional communication skills, and the ability to influence technical and business leaders. You will operate at both strategic and tactical levels, helping guide priorities, manage risks and dependencies, and ensure engineering efforts remain aligned to organizational objectives.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive the domain's delivery framework, ensuring work is aligned with strategic objectives and focused on the highest-value outcomes.
• Establish and maintain delivery governance structures, planning processes, backlog management practices, and reporting mechanisms.
• Partner with Technical Program Managers, Engineering Managers, Product Managers, and leadership teams to prioritize work and manage delivery commitments.
• Co-own backlog organization, Program Increment (PI) planning activities, and overall delivery roadmaps.
• Facilitate cross-functional planning and ensure dependencies, sequencing, and integration efforts are clearly defined and managed.
• Identify, track, and actively mitigate program risks, blockers, and dependencies.
• Maintain accurate project documentation, Jira artifacts, dashboards, and delivery reporting.
• Communicate program status, risks, milestones, and changes to stakeholders and leadership teams.
• Ensure work items have clearly defined acceptance criteria, measurable outcomes, and business value.
• Validate delivery outcomes with engineering and program leadership upon project completion.
• Participate in intake and discovery processes, providing planning, prioritization, and delivery expertise.
• Support continuous improvement of delivery standards, governance practices, and Agile execution processes.
• Build strong partnerships across Engineering, Product, Design, Testing, Operations, Quality, Safety/Regulatory, Release Management, and other key stakeholders.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related field.
• 4+ years of IT experience.
• 1+ year of Program Management experience.
• Strong expertise in Project Management, Program Management, and Project Planning.
• Experience managing complex, cross-functional technology initiatives.
• Hands-on experience with Agile Software Development methodologies.
• Advanced proficiency with Jira, including backlog management, reporting, dashboards, and workflow administration.
• Strong conflict resolution and stakeholder management skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to translate technical concepts for executive audiences.

Required Skills

• Project Management
• Program Management
• Project Planning
• Agile Software Development
• Jira Administration & Reporting
• Technical Communication
• Risk & Dependency Management
• Cross-Functional Leadership
• Stakeholder Management
• Conflict Resolution
• PI Planning
• Roadmap Management
• Delivery Governance

Examples of Success

• Managed end-to-end PI planning for multiple Agile teams, coordinating capacity planning, dependency management, and committed delivery objectives.
• Created executive-level communications that translated complex technical initiatives into concise business-focused updates.
• Facilitated resolution of competing priorities between Product and Engineering through data-driven tradeoff discussions.
• Identified critical cross-team dependencies and coordinated mitigation plans that prevented launch delays.
• Improved delivery predictability by leveraging Agile metrics such as carry-over rate, capacity utilization, and commitment accuracy.
• Established Jira governance standards to ensure backlog quality, reporting accuracy, and delivery transparency across teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting large-scale platform migrations or infrastructure modernization programs.
• Experience working in highly regulated environments.
• Familiarity with Atlassian reporting, automation, and advanced JQL queries.
• SAFe, PMP, Scrum Master, or Agile certifications preferred.