Project Manager

Project Manager - Content Acquisition - 6 month fixed term

About Springer Nature

Springer Nature opens the doors to discovery for researchers, educators, clinicians and other professionals. Every day, around the globe, our imprints, books, journals, platforms and technology solutions reach millions of people. For over 175 years our brands and imprints have been a trusted source of knowledge to these communities and today, more than ever, we see it as our responsibility to ensure that fundamental knowledge can be found, verified, understood and used by our communities - enabling them to improve outcomes, make progress, and benefit the generations that follow.

We are seeking a Project Manager/Senior Project Manager to join us on a 6-month fixed-term contract as parental leave cover. This role will be a key team member responsible for facilitating agile delivery, maintaining a culture of continuous improvement, and ensuring effective coordination and collaboration both within the team and across other teams, domains, and departments.

About us

Content Acquisition (CA) is a domain in Springer Nature Digital that ensures our researchers, editors and reviewers can publish their content in the most efficient, user-centric and rewarding process possible. Our vison is “An intuitive, convenient and rewarding publishing experience.”

SN Digital (SND) is a technology division of Springer Nature responsible for acquiring, maintaining and delivering millions of articles used by researchers, scientists and students around the globe.

There are about 300 of us in London, Berlin, Lisbon, Pune, New York, Madrid, Dordrecht and Heidelberg. We work in collaborative, multi-disciplinary delivery teams, developing digital products and services that answer user problems and support business goals.

The work is interesting and meaningful.

Our culture is collaborative and friendly.

We encourage and support growth, both personal and professional.

This is a terrific opportunity for friendly, inquisitive people who want to get involved in our work, who love to learn, who will embrace and develop our culture, and help make SND a place where people and ideas can thrive.

We are intentionally looking to create teams that are diverse and inclusive. Diversity is the mix of culture, background, experience and personality that we all bring; inclusion is getting the mix to work better together. We want every member of our teams to contribute to our common goals while respecting each other's skills, knowledge and needs.

About the role

This is a 6-month fixed-term parental cover role within SN Digital, Content Acquisition.

Our products and initiatives deliver value to our global business through collaboration between cross-disciplinary teams. You will be working in one of our product teams and interacting with other teams, stakeholders and departments to ensure technical deliveries are understood, planned, tracked, delivered on time, within budget, and fit for purpose. You will be responsible for monitoring and reporting on project status and will play a leading role in facilitating the development of quarterly objectives and roadmaps. You will help harness the team’s talents to ensure they are delivering the highest-value products and functionalities. You will work within a cross-functional delivery team, whose members have different backgrounds and experience levels. All team members collaborate to deliver solutions that best satisfy the needs of our users, and we are working to create a culture that encourages new ideas and innovation within the boundaries of the technologies that best support the Springer Nature vision.

About you

• You have significant industry experience in a leadership role on a variety of software projects.

• You have experience working on agile initiatives or a strong, demonstrable understanding of agile software development processes, including working within multi-disciplinary teams

• You are skilled at facilitating technical discussions across teams, identifying risks and dependencies, and ensuring effective communication and resolution across all stakeholders.

• You have successfully managed several projects or release cycles in a delivery capacity, preferably with multi-disciplinary teams, both co-located and distributed.

• You have a proven track record of successful projects, and a corresponding collection of lessons learned from them.

• You can clearly articulate improvements that you’ve been responsible for when working in previous teams.

• You are passionate about mentoring and supporting individuals and teams, building capabilities, and fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement.

• You have extensive experience working with diverse stakeholders, ensuring the right level of information is communicated to keep initiatives on track and aligned with business goals.

What you will be doing

Key Tasks

• Coordinate the delivery of initiatives, taking into account dependencies, risks and stakeholder requirements.

• Create delivery plans and monitor against commitments, report regularly and openly, ensuring plans and artefacts are kept current, and deviations and issues are communicated.

• Ensure work remains aligned with agreed priorities and business objectives and communicate deviations and issues

• Facilitate planning, refinement, roadmap, and retrospective meetings.

• Support the product delivery team to reach decisions quickly and effectively

• Sustain our culture of continuous improvement both from a process and technical perspective ensuring that valuable software is delivered frequently

• Facilitate the creation and monitoring of quarterly goals

• Raise and manage risks, issues and dependencies

• Leverage data driven forecasting to enable strategic delivery and capacity planning, ensuring resources are balanced and aligned with prioritised objectives

• Provide guidance and support in all aspects of the project lifecycle

• Facilitate agile best practices

• Foster a culture of collaboration, ownership and empowerment within the team

Skills & Experience

• Project Management experience within the software engineering industry, with a proven ability to manage and deliver initiatives across multiple teams.

• Expertise in lean and vertical slicing of user stories to enable continuous delivery of user value.

• Proven leadership skills, with progressive experience in guiding and aligning teams to deliver successful outcomes across multiple streams of work.

• Technical knowledge, sufficient to engage effectively in discussions and decisions.

• Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to adapt style based on the audience, including conveying clear and concise updates to senior stakeholders and facilitating cross-team alignment.

• Deep understanding of agile methodologies, with the expertise to assess and apply the most suitable framework for multiple teams operating in different contexts.

• Skilled in tracking project progress and reporting actionable, concise information to stakeholders at all levels, ensuring visibility and alignment.

• Ability to organize and facilitate ceremonies, workshops, and inceptions, fostering collaboration and engagement.

• Experience in using agile project management systems, in particular Jira and monday.com

At Springer Nature, our mission is to be part of progress - and that begins with inclusion: of people, perspectives, and ideas. We believe that diverse perspectives drive progress, and we are committed to creating an environment where people and ideas can flourish. If you have any access needs related to disability, neurodivergence or a chronic condition, please contact us so we can make all necessary accommodation.