Software Program Management Team Lead

About the Role

As a Software Program Management Team Lead at HARMAN, you lead, coach, mentor and develop a team of typically 5 to 10 Software Project Leads while ensuring that the software part of our telematics and connectivity projects is delivered in time, in budget and in required quality.

The SW Program Management Team Lead must have the same software project leadership experience, software engineering understanding, customer-facing delivery competence and end-to-end software delivery governance capability as a Senior Software Project Lead. The position requires the ability to understand complex software systems, structure dependencies, govern project execution, challenge delivery plans, support customer escalations and guide SW Project Leads in their daily project business.

You are responsible for the line management of the assigned SW Project Leads, including resource planning, capacity management, performance management, capability development, hiring support, succession planning, coaching and mentoring. In addition, you ensure the right prioritization between the different projects to which the SW Project Leads are assigned and act as the first escalation level for delivery, resource, customer and organizational topics related to these SW Project Leads.

You are the functional leader for software project management excellence across the assigned portfolio. You ensure consistent software delivery governance, release readiness transparency, risk management, cross-functional collaboration, customer communication and management reporting across all assigned programs.

Your Team

The SW Program Management Team Lead will report to the Director Engineering Software Project Management and will have direct disciplinary responsibility for typically 5 to 10 Software Project Leads.

The assigned Software Project Leads operate as the end-to-end software delivery leaders for their respective customer programs and are accountable for achieving software delivery objectives within agreed scope, schedule, quality and resource constraints.

The SW Program Management Team Lead provides organizational leadership, capacity planning, prioritization guidance, competency development and escalation support while ensuring that each Software Project Lead maintains full ownership and accountability for the successful end-to-end delivery of the software scope assigned to their project.

The role works closely with Program Management, Engineering Management, Software Domain Management, Architecture, Requirements Engineering, Development, Integration, Verification, Quality, Operations and customer-facing leadership teams.

What You Will Do

• Line Management and People Leadership:

• Lead, coach, mentor and develop a team of typically 5 to 10 Software Project Leads.
• Own line-management responsibilities including goal setting, performance management, feedback, development planning, succession planning, hiring support, onboarding and retention of SW Project Leads.
• Ensure that all assigned SW Project Leads understand their roles, responsibilities, project assignments and expected delivery contribution.
• Build and maintain a high-performing Software Project Lead organization with a high level of competence, operational excellence, collaboration and accountability.
• Provide guidance to SW Project Leads in their daily business, project challenges, stakeholder management, customer situations and escalation handling.
• Promote strong collaboration and transparency between Customer Group, Software, Hardware, System, Test, Quality, Operations and other entities involved in project execution.

• Functional Leadership and Technical Authority:

• Ensure that each Software Project Lead fully assumes and executes end-to-end accountability for the software delivery of their assigned project.

• Drive a culture of ownership, accountability and delivery excellence across the Software Project Lead organization.
• Verify that software plans, resource strategies, milestone commitments, risks, dependencies and release readiness activities are owned and actively managed by the responsible Software Project Lead.
• Ensure that accountability for software delivery remains clearly assigned to the responsible Software Project Lead throughout the complete project lifecycle.
• Support Software Project Leads in fulfilling their end-to-end delivery responsibilities through coaching, mentoring, prioritization support and escalation management.

• Software Project Lead Delivery Expertise:
• The Team Lead performs these activities primarily through governance, coaching, review and escalation support and does not replace the assigned SW Project Lead as the accountable project delivery owner:
• Apply expert software project management knowledge equivalent to a Senior Software Project Lead.
• Understand complex automotive software systems, break down scope and dependencies into manageable work packages and guide SW Project Leads in establishing executable software delivery plans.
• Plan, monitor, control and track software project execution to achieve schedule, effort, product quality and process quality targets.
• Create, challenge and review software project milestone schedules synchronized with program management, customer milestones, suppliers and internal engineering teams.
• Drive software release readiness governance, including transparent readiness criteria, defect status, open risks, known limitations, verification maturity, integration maturity and release recommendation preparation.
• Ensure that software delivery governance covers requirements readiness, architecture maturity, implementation progress, integration readiness, software verification maturity, defects, dependencies and risks.
• Review and challenge software project plans, resource assumptions, recovery plans, risk assessments, escalation strategies and customer commitments prepared by SW Project Leads.
• Represent programs internally and externally to senior management during program, quality, engineering and operations reviews when required.
• Serve as the management-level expert and escalation partner for SW Project Leads during critical project phases, release readiness decisions and customer escalations.

• ​Portfolio Governance and Prioritization:
• Ensure right prioritization between the different projects to which the SW Project Leads are assigned.
• Resolve prioritization conflicts across multiple customer programs, especially when schedule, resource, quality or customer priorities compete.
• Drive prioritization alignment with other Software Project Managers, Program Managers, Engineering Managers and senior leadership.
• Ensure that business-critical milestones, customer commitments and high-risk software deliveries receive appropriate focus and leadership attention.
• Maintain portfolio transparency regarding software delivery status, resource constraints, risks, escalations, milestone readiness and recovery activities.
• Escalate portfolio-level priority conflicts to senior management when decisions exceed the authority of individual SW Project Leads.
• Resource Planning and Capacity Management:

• Own resource planning and capacity management for the assigned SW Project Lead team.
• Plan and balance SW Project Lead assignments based on project complexity, customer priority, workload, competence, development needs and business criticality.
• Identify current and future staffing needs and support workforce planning, hiring and organizational scaling activities.
• Monitor workload, utilization, project coverage and assignment risks across the SW Project Lead organization.
• Coordinate resource conflicts and capacity constraints with engineering leadership, program leadership and other relevant line-management organizations.
• Support RFQ, RFI and change request activities with effort estimation, resource assessment, feasibility evaluation, risk evaluation and software project management input.

• Escalation Management:

• Act as the first management escalation level for assigned SW Project Leads.
• Drive and solve escalations from SW Project Leads related to project execution, customer commitments, resource constraints, cross-functional conflicts, delivery risks and organizational impediments.
• Drive and support escalations to Line Management and top management levels, including Director and Senior Director level, where required.
• Drive and support customer escalations on management level for software-related topics.
• Arbitrate and resolve conflicts and interface problems affecting progress of software projects.
• Ensure transparent escalation when delivery commitments, quality targets, release readiness or customer milestones are at risk.

• Customer and Program Leadership:

• Ensure that SW Project Leads serve as the main face to the customer for software-related topics and provide customer communication in a professional, structured and transparent manner.
• Support customer-facing software program leadership during critical phases, escalations, milestone reviews and recovery situations.
• Ensure software deliveries meet customer program expectations in high quality, in time and in budget by following project specifications and applicable processes.
• Build positive and productive working relationships with cross-functional teams and customers.
• Support strategic discussions and decisions related to software delivery, project execution, customer commitments and organizational priorities.

• Process, Quality and Continuous Improvement:

• Drive quality and process compliance to meet Automotive SPICE objectives and applicable internal process requirements.
• Assess impact of new policies, programs, processes or tools on the software project management landscape, including process, system and people implications.
• Evaluate project milestones and lessons learned to ensure continuous improvement across current and future projects.
• Lead process improvement initiatives from proposal to realization, including simplification, standardization and efficiency improvements.
• Establish and maintain software project management standards, templates, planning guidelines, reporting expectations and governance routines.
• Liaise with communication and change-management stakeholders to address change-management implications where required.

• Profitability and Business Awareness:

• Review business case and software budget aspects in close exchange with Program Management regarding the financial health of assigned projects.
• Monitor project activities with regard to budget, cost, effort and resource impact where relevant to software project management.
• Support analysis, evaluation and feasibility of customer requirements, special OEM specifications, RFQs, RFIs, change requests, BOM estimates, effort estimation and risk management activities.

What You Need

• University degree in Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Information Technology, Computer Science or an equivalent qualification.
• Proven experience carrying end-to-end accountability for software delivery as a Software Project Lead, Program Manager or equivalent leadership role.
• Proven capability to lead, coach and develop Software Project Leads who are themselves accountable for the end-to-end software delivery of complex automotive software programs.
• Expert knowledge in project management and coordination in a globally distributed development environment.
• Knowledge in software engineering and embedded software delivery.
• Extensive experience as a Software Project Lead, Senior Software Project Lead, Software Program Manager, Delivery Lead or equivalent role with end-to-end software delivery responsibility.
• Proven ability to successfully run the software part of complex automotive customer projects and ensure deliveries in time, in budget and in quality.
• Strong understanding of software development lifecycles, software requirements, software architecture, implementation, integration, verification, release readiness and defect management.
• Knowledge of Agile software development and classical project management methods.
• Knowledge of requirements definition, requirements management and change impact assessment.
• Knowledge of risk management, escalation management, recovery planning and milestone governance.
• Knowledge of process models such as Automotive SPICE® and CMMI.
• Ability to understand complex systems, break them down into reasonable parts and make dependencies visible, describable and manageable.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to provide regular software program status updates to senior management.
• Strong interpersonal, relationship-management, conflict-resolution and negotiation skills.
• Proven capability to lead, coach, mentor and develop project management talent.
• Experience in resource planning, capacity management, workload balancing and workforce planning.
• Ability to resolve priority conflicts across multiple projects and align decisions with customer, engineering and business priorities.
• Ability to define, pursue and reach measurable individual and organizational goals corresponding to the general HARMAN strategy.
• Global mindset, teamwork in a multi-location environment, enterprise approach and broad intercultural experience.
• Must have a whatever-it-takes attitude using diplomatic leadership skills within a collaborative teamwork environment to accomplish the necessary results.
• Fluent Japanese (Level 1)
• Business English

What is Nice to Have

• Certified Project Management Professional or equivalent project management certification.
• Automotive experience, preferably in telematics, connectivity, embedded systems or automotive software platforms.
• Projects implemented with Automotive SPICE Level 3 or comparable maturity expectations.
• Experience in real-time embedded software and system development.
• Previous line-management experience leading Software Project Leads, Project Managers, Program Managers or comparable engineering project management roles.
• Experience managing teams of project management professionals and developing organizational capability.
• Experience supporting organizational transformation, operating model development and software project management community building.

What Makes You Eligible

• Be willing to travel up to 25%, including domestic and international travel.
• Be willing to work in a global, distributed and customer-facing environment.
• Be able to collaborate across time zones with engineering, program, customer and leadership teams.

What We Offer

• We offer an authentic, diverse, equal and inclusive work environment that fosters and encourages professional and personal development in a truly global organization.
• You will work on products and services that touch people’s lives and help shape industrial standards as part of the transformation in our industry.
• Our work environments are fast paced, challenging, empowering, collaborative, flexible and exciting.
• We offer HARMAN University with regular updates on new technologies and trends through self-learning and development trainings to help grow and advance talent.
• We offer competitive compensation and benefit programs as well as recognition programs.

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