Mid Market Program Manager at Harbor IT in Remote (United States)

Job description

• The Mid-Market Program Manager owns the end-to-end operational performance of Harbor IT's mid-market POD: the clients in it, the delivery staff who serve them, the projects running inside it, and the service delivery workflows that hold it together. This is a true operational leadership role.
• The Program Manager sets the standard, builds the playbook, and holds the team accountable to it. This is a foundational hire. The POD is being stood up ahead of a significant mid-market client coming online, and the person in this seat is expected to arrive with proven MSP/IT practices and install them, not wait to be handed a process.
• They will directly manage the POD's Service Delivery Managers, Technical Leads, and support staff; own service quality and SLA attainment; run the POD's PMO and project delivery; own PSA data integrity and the financial inputs of delivery; and carry renewal accountability for the POD book.
• This role demands a results-oriented operator: someone who holds the team to timelines, enforces standards without apology, and drives outcomes rather than consensus. We do not want a yes-man. We want someone who will push back when the work is not up to standard and own the result either way.
• The metrics at the end of this document are the job, not an appendix to it.

Responsibilities

• Manage and lead the pod's Service Delivery Managers, Technical Leads, and support staff, including hiring, performance management, coaching, and day-to-day workload assignment.
• Own service quality for the POD: monitor service levels and enforce compliance with contractual SLAs and KPIs, and define the measurement where it does not yet exist.
• Own end-to-end delivery of projects within the pod, including scoping, planning, resourcing, and budget tracking, from kickoff through closeout.
• Own queue health for the POD: ticket aging, backlog disposition, escalation rates, reopen rates, and first contact resolution. Review the backlog weekly and disposition every aged ticket.
• Own PSA hygiene for the POD: enforce ticket quality standards (notes, categorization, resolution documentation), time entry accuracy and timeliness, and correct work type classification. The Program Manager is accountable if the data in the PSA is wrong.
• Own the financial inputs of POD delivery: drive delivery staff utilization to target, enforce 95 percent or better time entry accuracy, manage agreement utilization, identify out-of-scope billing opportunities, and ensure contract compliance. This role directly impacts service margin.
• Build and maintain service delivery SOPs, escalation playbooks, ticket handling standards, and onboarding documentation for the POD. This role is expected to create operational structure, not inherit it.
• Analyze ticketing and incident trends, identify root causes, and drive remediation through proactive service improvement, delivering a defined number of CSI (continual service improvement) actions each quarter.
• Own client communication during major incidents, planned maintenance, and other impactful events, and own the post-incident RCA and follow-through on corrective actions.
• Maintain a current performance scorecard for every direct report, with individual metrics that ladder up to POD-level KPIs, and conduct regular 1:1s, performance reviews, and accountability conversations.
• Serve as the leader of PMO for the pod, establishing and enforcing consistent project management standards, templates, and reporting across all active pod projects.
• Compliment the CX function, partnering on the cadence of client touchpoints and relationship health signals such as CSAT and NPS, and jointly driving proactive action on at-risk accounts.
• Join client SBRs and project status reviews for the pod's mid-market accounts, packaging performance, project, and relationship data into a single client-facing narrative.
• Monitor program and project-level performance metrics, ticket queues, and incident trends across the pod, and escalate risks before they affect delivery or the client relationship.
• Act as the senior escalation point for project, technical, and client issues within the pod and following proper escalation path when an issue exceeds pod-level authority.
• Partner with other departments on scoping new project work, contract renewals, and onboarding new mid-market clients into the pod.
• Track project and program budgets, resource allocation, and utilization across the pod, and flag variances to leadership.
• Apply ITIL-aligned processes and Harbor IT SOPs consistently across the pod's projects and service delivery, and drive continuous improvement across all disciplines in the pod.
• Maintain accurate project and program documentation, and keep the pod's SOPs current.

Requirements

• Proven people leadership as the formal manager of technical or service delivery staff, including hiring, performance reviews, and authority over formal performance improvement or termination decisions. MSP or IT services delivery experience required, not preferred.
• Experience managing both projects and ongoing service delivery in an MSP or IT services environment, supporting mid-market clients.
• Comfortable carrying commercial accountability, including renewal targets and pricing or discount decisions within defined limits.
• Working technical fluency sufficient to handle escalations and represent the POD credibly on technical matters, without needing to be the deepest specialist in the room.
• Working knowledge of project management methodology, such as waterfall or agile/hybrid approaches, as well as ITIL service management principles.
• Demonstrated experience owning client experience or relationship health metrics, such as CSAT, NPS, or SBR cadence, for a book of accounts, ideally in partnership with a Customer Success function.
• Strong organizational skills, with the ability to run multiple concurrent client projects while also managing a team's day-to-day performance.
• Comfortable interpreting service and project performance data and packaging it into clear, client-ready reporting.
• Demonstrated ownership of contractual SLA and KPI targets, including client-facing reporting against those targets and a specific example of recovering from a miss.
• Hands-on configuration or administration experience in a PSA or ITSM platform (ConnectWise, Autotask, HaloPSA, Kaseya BMS, ServiceNow, or comparable): ticket queues, SLA rules, workflows, and performance reporting. Not solely working tickets inside one.
• Track record of building service delivery frameworks, SOPs, or operational playbooks in an MSP environment, not just executing someone else's.
• Comfortable delivering hard messages to clients and to direct reports without softening them into mush, and willing to push back when work is not up to standard.
• Strong communication skills and executive presence, both client-facing and internal.
• Enough financial literacy to own program budgets, resource utilization, and a renewal or expansion number.
• Comfortable operating as a foundational hire in a fast-paced, growth-stage environment with an evolving scope.
• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Business Administration, or a related field, or equivalent work experience.
• 6 to 8 years of experience combining program or project management with service delivery management within an MSP, MSSP, or IT services provider, including at least 2 years as the formal manager of technical or service delivery staff.
• PMP or CAPM preferred given ownership of the pod's PMO function.
• ITIL v4 Foundations certification a plus.
• Prior exposure to technical service delivery, such as NOC, help desk, or infrastructure support, a plus given the technical escalation scope of this role.

Skills

Required

• People leadership
• MSP or IT services delivery experience
• Project management
• Service delivery management
• Commercial accountability
• Technical fluency
• ITIL service management principles
• Organizational skills
• Data interpretation and reporting
• SLA and KPI ownership
• Communication skills
• Executive presence

Preferred

• PMP or CAPM certification
• ITIL v4 Foundations certification

Benefits

• 125,000 - 150,000 USD per year (Remote (United States))