Senior Program Manager / Account Leader at MSAG in Washington, DC, USA

Job description

• MSAG is seeking a resilient, high-EQ Program Manager to lead and rebuild a key technical contract by establishing critical customer trust and guiding a specialized engineering team. This role requires an experienced technical leader with an engineering or scientific background who excels in relationship building, clear boundary-setting, operational discipline, and team/task realignment.
• The ideal candidate is a proactive communicator and change management leader who can step into a complex environment, establish radical transparency with customer stakeholders, realign team workflows to corporate and contract deliverables, and re-establish execution excellence. If you thrive on taking ambiguous and intricate delivery environments and turning them into showcase high-performing accounts, this role is for you.

Responsibilities

• Program Leadership, Operations & Risk Management
• Stakeholder Alignment & Transparency: Serve as the primary, visible interface to customer leadership. Address challenges directly by implementing clear, transparent operational reporting and high-accountability delivery cadences.
• Scope Management: Work closely with customer stakeholders to clarify, align, and manage scope expectations, ensuring contract deliverables directly resolve core customer pain points.
• Proactive Risk & Issue Resolution: Identify operational, technical, or relational risks early. Drive root-cause problem solving and deliver swift, communicative resolution to ensure customer confidence.
• Team Governance & Alignment: Lead, mentor, and realign a dedicated engineering team. Establish clear operational parameters between customer directives and contractual scope to ensure team activities are aligned with MSAG standards.
• Performance Culture & Accountabilities: Balance strong employee advocacy with high performance standards. Establish transparent metrics, individual performance goals, and a collaborative team environment that respects customer needs while maintaining contractor identity.
• Talent Development & Mentorship: Conduct regular one-on-ones, provide clear career paths, and build team morale around achievable, celebrated operational milestones.
• Program Operations, Financials & Compliance
• Execution & Quality Assurance: Oversee daily technical execution, ensuring processes are streamlined, workflows are documentable, and contract outputs satisfy federal compliance standards.
• Financial Oversight and Management: Oversee monthly invoicing accuracy, manage labor hour ceilings, track PTO/travel requests, and maintain semi-monthly timecard compliance across the team, while managing profitability targets.
• Management Reporting: Develop and present concise, impactful Monthly Program Management Reviews (PMRs) for both MSAG executive leadership and customer representatives.
• Account Strategy and Growth
• Delivery Excellence & Growth: Maintain a relentless focus on high-quality service delivery, leveraging strong customer trust as the foundation for long-term contract stability, recompete preparation, and organic expansion.
• Recompete & Capture Readiness: Maintain detailed knowledge of contract scope and performance data to lead future recompete and capture efforts seamlessly.
• Executive Presence: Navigate complex customer relationships, align priorities, and foster collaborative environments across multi-stakeholder groups.
• Scope Discipline: Maintain contractual scope boundaries professionally while identifying future opportunities to add value.

Requirements

• Residency & Clearance: U.S. Citizenship is required. Must have the ability to obtain and maintain a Federal Public Trust clearance (Active security clearance preferred).
• Education: Bachelor's degree in engineering, math, or science.
• Certifications: Active Project Management Professional (PMP), Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP), Program Management Professional (PgMP), or equivalent formal program management certification is required. Exceptions may be made based on skills and experience.
• Experience: 15+ years of progressive federal technical program management experience, with proven experience in account turnaround, stakeholder relationship repair, or crisis/change management.
• Relationship Recovery & Negotiation: Demonstrated capability to navigate sensitive customer relationships, de-escalate friction, and turn around underperforming or low-trust projects, if needed.
• Boundary-Setting & Scope Discipline: Ability to politely, firmly, and professionally enforce contractual scope boundaries with both internal staff and customer stakeholders, as appropriate.
• Emotional Intelligence & Change Management: Exceptional interpersonal skills needed to motivate an entrenched team and foster corporate alignment without damaging team morale.
• Technical Communication: Excellent executive-level written and verbal briefing skills, capable of translating complex engineering details into clear management metrics.

Skills

Required

• Program management
• Technical leadership
• Engineering or scientific background
• Relationship building
• Boundary-setting
• Operational discipline
• Team/task realignment
• Proactive communication
• Change management
• Radical transparency
• Execution excellence
• Risk management

Preferred

• Relationship recovery and negotiation
• Emotional intelligence
• Technical communication

Benefits

• Full-time employees are eligible for paid company benefits, paid time off, sick leave and federal /national holiday pay.