Principal IT Portfolio/Project Manager

This position is eligible for teleworking, which is currently 2 days per week. New hires are eligible to apply 30 days after their effective date of hire.

Opening:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is North America's largest transportation network, serving a population of 15.3 million people across a 5,000-square-mile travel area surrounding New York City, Long Island, southeastern New York State, and Connecticut. The MTA network comprises the nation’s largest bus fleet and more subway and commuter rail cars than all other U.S. transit systems combined. MTA strives to provide a safe and reliable commute, excellent customer service, and rewarding opportunities.

Summary:

This role works closely with technical leads, operational teams, cyber teams, developers, designers, and testers to shape the product's features and roadmap. It conducts market and customer research, gathers business and technical requirements, and monitors product performance, directly contributing to delivering a customer-centric product that drives business growth.

For the highest-impact and complexity IT products and/or services, this role orchestrates the overall planning process, leading the definition of business justification, requirements, minimum viable product, and proposed delivery sequence for new functionality. It is responsible for leading business cases for enterprise-level projects and determining KPIs. This role also defines and manages IT product and service implementation roadmaps with full traceability, value realization reporting, and views for all stakeholders, governing the flow of transition activities to deliver value early and often, within available resources and dependencies.

This role may work with executive management to evaluate and select proposals and technologies that improve the Agency's strategic position, collaborate with business units to manage the demand and fulfillments of all IT services ensuring objectives are met, and maintain communication on the state and activities of IT. In product-related projects, this role may serve as a right-hand to a product manager and act as a liaison for the relationship between the Product department and other business agencies.

Responsibilities:

• For the highest-impact/complexity IT products and/or services, orchestrates overall planning process for initial development and phased lifecycle transitions.
• Determines KPIs and delivers measurable impact every month.
• Leads the development of business cases for enterprise-level projects, including tangible costs, benefits, and performance measures. Demonstrates the ability to lead by influence amongst cross-functional teams in a matrix organization.
• Understands customer and business unit needs and identifies market opportunities to help define the platform’s vision and strategy.
• Produces metrics that reflect the capacity and constraints of resources, funding, and the ability to change - to help inform the demands from both customers and the department.
• Creates and leads high-level business cases for presentation and review. Understands the business impact of different solutions and can assess and communicate risks and benefits.
• Leads the demand side of IT governance on behalf of the business units, advocating their needs and leading the planning effort for how technology will support the units' strategic objectives.
• Facilitates the prioritization and scoping of requirements.
• For IT projects of the highest impact/complexity, project development from conception through implementation using agreed project framework, methodology, and tools.
• May serve as project leader for enterprise-level sized IT products/projects.
• May serve as a right-hand to a product manager for product-related projects.
• May support product manager with developing a comprehensive understanding of the company-wide strategic goals with a focus on how technology can improve the company’s strategic position.
• Interacts regularly with the key business unit users and demonstrates the value of IT to the business community to promote and advance the business goals of the MTA and ensure users are making full use of system capabilities.
• May analyze business operations to identify process improvement opportunities, and model current and desired scenarios for stakeholder review, consideration, and approval.
• Monitors the development of service/product descriptions and maintenance of service/product catalogs.
• Leads the execution of resourcing activities in collaboration with delivery team managers.
• Analyzes market trends and customer behavior to drive feature development and product improvements.
• Co-creates the development of customer journey maps and product innovation roadmaps with Product Managers.
• Collaborates closely with product managers, developers, and designers to implement product enhancements based on business requirements.
• Actively participates in agile ceremonies
• Develops effective reports and documents to communicate findings and analysis to product team and business stakeholders.
• Works closely and directly with design and engineering teams to deliver solutions that have demonstrable and measurable impact and determine the best technical implementation methods to achieve our customer and business objectives.
• Serves as an advocate for product management best practices that maximize the value of existing technology and methodologies to enable the Product team and the organization to operate more effectively as the organization scales.
• Partners with engineering, design, data, lifecycle, and member support teams to build software collaboratively and inclusively.
• Provides technical advice to project teams and mentors less experienced staff to foster talent development.
• Abides by MTA attendance expectations and requirements by attending regularly and reliably.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Arts/Sciences (BA/BS). An equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.
• Minimum 10 yearsof relevant experience.
• Multiple domains of required certifications in the current platform/domain/technical skills, but not limited to:
  • Certified Product Manager
  • Certified Agile Project Manager (IAPM)
  • SAFe 5 Agilist (SA)
  • Project Management Professional (PMP)
  • Business Relationship Management Professional (BRMP)
  • PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)
  • ICAgile Certified Professional - Agile Project Management (ICP-APM)
  • SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager
  • Certified Change Management Professional (CCMP)
  • Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP)

Technical Skills:

• Expert experience with common developer productivity tools like Jira, Confluence, etc.
• Expert understanding of technical concepts.
• Expert in process-focused execution, having successfully driven technical programs for enterprise products in a fast-paced environment.
• Advanced in working with enterprise customers and/or business unit users.
• Advanced with product delivery.
• Familiarity with tools for data analysis and programming languages (e.g., Python or R) for data handling and analysis.
• Familiarity with business analysis or project management.
• Familiarity with product lifecycle management concepts
• Familiarity with current and emerging technologies.
• Familiarity with agile methodology.
• Familiarity with product management.
• Familiarity with MTA/Agency policies and procedures.
• Working knowledge of IT service development concepts.

Behavioral Skills:

• Advanced active listening, attention to detail, customer service, prioritization, and problem-solving skills.
• Expert in working independently and strategically.
• Advanced expertise in identifying and analyzing risks and developing effective mitigation strategies.
• Expert technical knowledge and diverse skillset to understand various technologies, systems, and potential risks.
• Advanced critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Expert in interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with both technical and non-technical peers.
• Expert in managing multiple projects simultaneously and prioritizing tasks based on urgency and impact.
• Extensive hands-on experience with related tools.
• Expert experience working under pressure and meeting deadlines individually and collaboratively. Thinks logically, assesses problems, and is results-oriented.
• Expert in identifying complex business and technology risks and associated vulnerabilities.
• Expert in communicating effectively, both orally and in writing, to interact with team members, customers, management, and support personnel (technical and non-technical).
• Expert in establishing and maintaining effective working relationships with employees at all levels within the organization, and with both internal and external customers.

Competencies:

Other Information:

Pursuant to the New York State Public Officers Law & the MTA Code of Ethics, all employees who hold a policymaking position must file an Annual Statement of Financial Disclosure (FDS) with the NYS Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government (the “Commission”).

Equal Employment Opportunity:

MTA and its subsidiary and affiliated agencies are Equal Opportunity Employers, including with respect to veteran status and individuals with disabilities.

The MTA encourages qualified applicants from diverse backgrounds, experiences, and abilities, including military service members, to apply.