Technical Project Manager–Data & Business Intelligence-ORCA (term-limited)

Salary range is $81K to $186K with a midpoint of $133K. New hires typically receive between minimum and midpoint, however, we may go slightly higher based on experience, internal equity and market.  

Sound Transit also offers a competitive benefits package with a wide range of offerings, including:

• Health Benefits: We offer two choices of medical plans, a dental plan, and a vision plan all at no cost for employee coverage; comprehensive benefits for employees and eligible dependents, including a spouse or domestic partner.
• Long-Term Disability and Life Insurance.
• Employee Assistance Program.
• Retirement Plans: 401a – 10% of employee contribution with a 12% match by Sound Transit; 457b – up to IRS maximum (employee only contribution).
• Paid Time Off: Employees accrue 25 days of paid time off annually with increases at four, eight and twelve years of service. Employees at the director level and up accrue additional days. We also observe 12 paid holidays and provide up to 2 paid floating holidays and up to 2 paid volunteer days per year.
• Parental Leave: 12 weeks of parental leave for new parents.
• Pet Insurance.
• ORCA Card: All full-time employees will receive an ORCA card at no cost.
• Tuition Reimbursement: Sound Transit will pay up to $5,000 annually for approved tuition expenses.
• Inclusive Reproductive Health Support Services.
• Compensation Practices: We offer competitive salaries based on market rates and internal equity. In addition to compensation and benefits, you’ll find that we provide work-life balance, opportunities for professional development and recognition from your colleagues.

This is a term-limited position with an assignment of 2 years. 

General Purpose

Under the supervision of the Deputy Director – ORCA Business Operations (ORCA BI Program Manager), the Technical Project Manager is responsible for planning, coordinating, and supporting the successful delivery of medium to large scale data, analytics, and business intelligence projects involving multiple technical and business stakeholders.

Essential Functions

• Under the direction of the ORCA BI Program Manager, manage the day-to-day planning and delivery of assigned medium- to large-scale data, analytics, business intelligence, reporting, and related technology projects.
• Develop and maintain project plans that clearly define scope, objectives, deliverables, milestones, schedules, resource needs, dependencies, and budgets.
• Work with the ORCA BI Program Manager to establish appropriate project governance, decision-making processes, escalation paths, and stakeholder engagement strategies.
• Use project management software and tools to provide transparent, current information regarding project scope, schedule, budget, milestones, dependencies, risks, issues, decisions, and overall project status.
• Monitor project performance against approved plans and proactively identify and escalate schedule, resource, scope, and budget variances.
• Coordinate activities across multiple workstreams, technical disciplines, stakeholder groups, and vendors.
• Manage project changes through established scope and change-control processes.
• Prepare concise project status reports and communicate progress, risks, decisions, and issues to the ORCA BI Program Manager, project sponsors, governance bodies, and other stakeholders.
• Plan and facilitate stakeholder meetings, workshops, requirements sessions, solution discussions, project reviews, and decision-making sessions.
• Facilitate and document business, functional, reporting, data, and technical requirements in partnership with business stakeholders, the Senior Business Intelligence Engineer, and other subject matter experts.
• Translate complex stakeholder discussions into clear requirements, decisions, action items, and next steps.
• Maintain documentation of project decisions, assumptions, requirements, action items, and stakeholder commitments.
• Build alignment among stakeholders with differing business needs, technical perspectives, priorities, and levels of technical expertise.
• Escalate unresolved decisions, risks, scope questions, and issues to the ORCA BI Program Manager as appropriate.
• In partnership with the Sr. Business Intelligence Engineer, facilitate evaluation of solution alternatives, including business requirements, technical feasibility, dependencies, constraints, risks, costs, and tradeoffs.
• Coordinate participation by appropriate technical subject matter experts in requirements development, solution analysis, design, testing, and implementation activities.
• Support the technical leads in ensuring proposed solutions are evaluated for alignment with applicable architecture, data governance, security, integration, and technology standards.
• Maintain traceability between business needs, requirements, solution decisions, project deliverables, and testing outcomes.
• Ensure technical decisions and recommendations are appropriately documented and incorporated into project plans and deliverables.
• In partnership with business stakeholders, develop and coordinate project-level testing strategies, schedules, responsibilities, entry and exit criteria, and acceptance processes.
• Facilitate user acceptance testing (UAT) and coordinate testing activities among business users, technical teams, vendors, and other stakeholders.
• Track defects, issues, and required remediation through resolution.
• Ensure testing results, approvals, and acceptance decisions are appropriately documented.
• Coordinate implement3ation readiness, deployment planning, stakeholder communications, training, documentation, and transition to operations or ongoing support.
• Facilitate project closeout activities, including lessons learned and documentation of outstanding operational items.

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree in project management, information technology, computer science, business administration, information systems, data analytics, or a related field; or an equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience. Five or more years of progressively responsible project management experience, including experience managing medium- to large-scale technology projects.

Preferred Licenses and Certifications

• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification highly preferred.

Required knowledge and Skills

• Demonstrated experience managing data-related projects, such as data warehouse, data integration, data migration, business intelligence, analytics, reporting, data platform, or similar initiatives.
• Demonstrated experience facilitating and documenting stakeholder engagement, requirements gathering, solution analysis, technical and business decision-making, and testing activities.
• Experience managing projects involving multiple business units, technical teams, vendors, or stakeholder organizations.
• Demonstrated ability to develop and maintain project scope, schedules, budgets, resource plans, risk and issue logs, decision logs, and project status reporting.
• Experience using project management and work-management software to provide stakeholders with visibility into project scope, schedule, deliverables, dependencies, risks, and budget.
• Strong understanding of project management methodologies and the ability to apply traditional, Agile, hybrid, or other approaches based on project needs.
• Strong meeting facilitation, written communication, documentation, presentation, and interpersonal skills.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively with both technical and nontechnical audiences.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and workstreams while maintaining attention to project dependencies, commitments, and deadlines.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively in environments requiring significant cross-functional coordination, stakeholder consensus, and formal decision-making.
• Data warehouses, data lakes, and modern data platforms knowledge
• Business intelligence and reporting solutions
• Data integration, ETL/ELT, and APIs
• Relational databases and data models
• Cloud-based data environments
• Data quality and validation
• System integrations and upstream/downstream dependencies
• Software development and system implementation lifecycles
• Testing methodologies, including system, integration, regression, and user acceptance testing
• Information security, privacy, and access-control considerations applicable to data projects
• Preferred Knowledge and Skills
• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification highly preferred.
• Experience managing projects in a public-sector, transportation, government, or similarly complex multi-stakeholder environment.
• Experience managing projects involving external vendors, consultants, or systems integrators.
• Experience with tools such as Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, Jira, Azure DevOps, or comparable project/work-management platforms.
• Familiarity with business intelligence platforms such as Microsoft Power BI or comparable technologies.
• Familiarity with Microsoft Azure or other cloud data environments.
• Experience working within formal governance, portfolio management, or project prioritization processes.
• Experience supporting procurement, statements of work, vendor deliverables, contract schedules, and project budgets

Physical Demands/Work Environment

• Work is performed in a hybrid environment with an expectation of working in office a minimum of 3 days per week.
• The Agency promotes a safe and healthy work environment and provides appropriate safety and equipment training for all personnel as required. 

Sound Transit is an equal employment opportunity employer. No person is unlawfully excluded from employment action based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation and pregnancy), age, genetic information, disability, veteran status or other protected class.