Senior Program Manager

Title: Senior Program Manager

Location and Work Authorization: Mumbai, India. Candidates must have existing authorization to work in India; PxD is unable to sponsor visas for this role.

Position:Full-time

Compensation:Salary will be competitive and commensurate with the candidate's skills, experience, and the local labor market in India.

Posted On: 7 October 2026

Application Deadline:October 28, 2026, 6 PM IST (applications may be reviewed as they are submitted)

Role Summary:

PxD is looking for a Senior Program Manager to build and lead an embedded unit within the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of Maharashtra. You will lead a portfolio of work spanning the use of AI for Agriculture, evidence-based policy support, and scaling of digital technologies to improve the livelihoods and resilience of smallholder farmers across Maharashtra. The unit exists to provide demand-driven support to the Department, responding to its priorities on AI-enabled decision-making and inclusive service access for farmers and will work across multiple parallel workstreams spanning technology deployment, data and analytics, and public-sector service delivery. You will build and lead a cross-functional team spanning policy staff, data scientists, technologists, program and research staff. This position is based in Mumbai, with regular engagement and travel to Pune and district-level offices.

About Precision Development (PxD):

PxD is a rapidly scaling global nonprofit working with governments across Africa and Asia to close the last-mile gap in smallholder farming. We deliver evidence-based information and tools - from timely farming and weather guidance to climate-resilient inputs - that millions of farmers use to improve their lives. In the last 12 months alone, we reached over 60 million farmers at a cost of just $0.47 per farmer per year, with our flagship program in India delivering a benefit-cost ratio of 12:1-19:1.

Operating in Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, and beyond, the majority of our team is based in our program countries, working directly alongside government partners and farming communities toward our goal of improving the lives of 100 million farmers by 2030.

Key Responsibilities:

As a Senior Program Manager, you will:

Stakeholder Management

• Serve as the government's primary point of contact for the program, building working relationships across the Ministry and an extensive network of technical partners, implementing partners, and PxD teams.
• Establish the unit's initial presence within government, securing working space, building early relationships with key decision makers, and setting up the operating rhythms (reporting, steering committee cadence, team processes) that don't yet exist.
• Lead regular review meetings with key government counterparts; manage funder relationships.
• Facilitate government workshops and stakeholder consultations to further the unit’s mandate.

Program Oversight, Delivery and Management

• Translate government priorities into a coordinated work plan, adjusting as the Department's needs shift.
• Own end-to-end implementation of projects, ensuring delivery against timelines, budgets, and quality standards.
• Monitor project progress, identify implementation risks, and proactively resolve bottlenecks.

Monitoring, Learning & Operations

• Oversee the program's evidence-generation agenda, including experiments designed to test whether specific interventions change outcomes before recommending the government scale them.
• Translate evidence findings into government-facing recommendations that a non-technical audience can act on
• Proactively oversee the unit's own internal monitoring and reporting, continuously identifying areas for improvement.

Grants, Contracts & Partner Management

• Manage project contracts, grants, and sub-partner relationships.
• Monitor partner performance against agreed deliverables.
• Ensure contractual and donor compliance throughout project implementation.
• Coordinate with finance and operations teams on budgets, procurement, and financial reporting.

Team Leadership

• Supervise, mentor, and develop junior team members, including Manager, Associates and Technical staff.
• Foster a collaborative, high-performing team culture focused on learning and continuous improvement.
• Support recruitment, onboarding, and performance management of team members.

Knowledge Management & Organizational Support

• Support the development of operational toolkits, implementation guides, communication materials, and standard operating procedures.
• Contribute to PxD's institutional knowledge management and cross-country learning.
• Support organizational planning, operational improvements, and other strategic initiatives as required.

Qualifications

Required

• Master's degree (or equivalent experience) in Public Policy, Economics, Agriculture, Development Studies, Engineering, Management, Data Science, or another relevant field.
• 7-10 years of progressively responsible experience managing complex programs or projects.
• Demonstrated experience managing large, multi-stakeholder projects involving government agencies and external partners.
• Familiarity with AI, digital technologies and its applications
• Strong project management skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously.
• Strong stakeholder management and relationship-building abilities.
• Proven experience leading and mentoring teams.
• Experience working with state or national government programs.
• Excellent organizational skills and exceptional attention to detail.

Preferred

• Experience in agriculture, climate, digital public infrastructure, technology, or international development.
• Familiarity with causal inference.
• Experience working with cross-functional technical, research, and operations teams.
• Comfort operating with significant ambiguity and limited existing infrastructure, having built or launched a new program or team from scratch
• Proficiency in Marathi (not mandatory but preferred).

How To Apply:

To apply, please visit the PxD website and complete the online application form, including your CV, cover letter, and brief responses to the screening questions. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. The final deadline to apply is 28 October 2026, 6 pm IST.

In line with our values, we evaluate candidates on merit alone, without regard to gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religion, disability, caste, or any other characteristic protected under applicable law. We offer flexible working arrangements to support your wellbeing. Personal data provided is used for recruitment purposes only.