Project Manager

The Project Manager drives approved Product initiatives through the Product Development Lifecycle by making plans, milestones, dependencies, risks, owners, readiness, and decisions visible. The role organizes execution across functions so contributors can focus on their work and Product leaders can focus on Product decisions.

The Project Manager is a systems-minded delivery leader, not a meeting scheduler or task chaser. The role is accountable for momentum, clarity, and escalation while leaving product, technical, academic, design, creative, AI-quality, and business decisions with the appropriate owners.

Key Responsibilities

1. Project Planning

• Turn approved scope and readiness criteria into an integrated plan with functional estimates and commitments. Coordinate discovery contributors and dependencies when assigned.
• Identify critical path, decision points, cross-functional handoffs, resource assumptions, and risks before they become blockers.
• Maintain original and current forecasts, record approved changes and coordinate accepted handoff, remaining obligations and project closure.

2. Execution & Coordination

• Facilitate the minimum operating cadence needed to keep work aligned and moving.
• Track dependencies, risks, blockers, decisions, actions, and readiness in the shared system of record rather than shadow trackers.
• Ensure owners understand commitments and escalate when work cannot proceed within agreed parameters.

3. Scope Change & Readiness

• Make proposed scope changes visible with impact to schedule, dependencies, capacity, quality, and readiness.
• Route Product tradeoffs to PM/Product leadership and functional decisions to the appropriate leader.
• Coordinate completion and visibility of Product, enablement, implementation, support, design, academic, AI-quality where applicable, QA, and technical readiness inputs without becoming the owner of those approvals.

4. Risk, Decisions & Escalation

• Surface unresolved blockers and decisions early with clear owner, impact, options, and required timing.
• Distinguish delivery risk from product, technical, academic, AI-quality, or operating-system issues and route each to the correct owner.
• Use the Director of Product Operations and Delivery for coaching or escalation when complexity, cross-project dependency, or consequence exceeds the PjM's delegated scope.

5. Continuous Improvement & Leverage

• Capture recurring delivery friction and recommend system improvements to Director of Product Operations and Delivery and Product Operations.
• Use shared templates, automation, and status conventions to minimize administrative overhead.
• Contribute lessons learned and reusable project patterns back into the delivery practice.

Definition of Success

Projects have credible plans, timely decisions, complete readiness and accepted handoffs. Product and functional owners retain decisions; PjMs independently coordinate delivery and surface risks before commitments fail.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

Required

• 4+ years of project or program-management experience in cross-functional product, software, content, or digital delivery, or equivalent demonstrated capability.
• Strong planning, facilitation, dependency/risk management, written communication, and escalation skills.
• Translate approved scope and readiness into plans while preserving Product and functional decisions.
• Experience with Jira or comparable delivery tooling and disciplined system-of-record practices.
• Manage concurrent workstreams, surface risks early and communicate concise delivery evidence.
• Use verified AI-assisted planning, synthesis, documentation and automation.

Preferred

• EdTech, SaaS, curriculum/technology, or multi-disciplinary product-development experience.
• Experience coordinating Product releases across Engineering, QA, Design, Academic, Creative and customer teams, including AI readiness where applicable.

Benefits

At Summit K12, we are committed to pay transparency and equitable compensation practices. The posted salary range reflects the scope of the role and current market benchmarks. Final compensation will be based on a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, your experience, skills, and qualifications. All offers are made with consideration for the individual candidate’s background and the needs of the role.

We also offer a comprehensive benefits package. Highlights include:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance with multiple plan options
• Company-paid short-term disability, long-term disability, and life insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan
• Paid Time Off (PTO) program
• 10 paid holidays plus 1 floating holiday annually
• Wellness resources and support programs

Summit K12 is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.