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Braven

Non-profit career-readiness program for underrepresented students

Associate Director, Technical Project Management - Technical Project Management

Full-TimeUpdated on 10/23/2026
$87.2k - $108.7k/yr
Mid
Newark, NJ, USA+3 moreMore locations: Chicago, IL, USA | New York, NY, USA | Atlanta, GA, USA
HybridIn-office Tuesday–Thursday and remote Monday and Friday; commute to Atlanta, Chicago, New York, or Newark. Travel 2–4 times yearly.
Project & Program ManagementProgram Management
No H1B Sponsorship

About the job

Requirements
  • At least 4 years of demonstrated excellence in cross-functional project or program management within a technical function.
  • Experience with Jira project management tool.
  • Experience with agile methodologies, specifically Scrum and Kanban.
  • Certified Scrum Master or Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is preferred.
  • Experience working directly with technical teams, including engineering, DevOps, Salesforce development, or platform infrastructure.
  • Familiarity with software development, the Salesforce development lifecycle, and emerging technologies.
  • Demonstrated success in managing complex projects from start to finish, ensuring contributing teammates have clear tasks and stakeholders are updated.
  • Ability to prioritize competing demands effectively and make timely decisions to keep critical work on track.
  • Demonstrated commitment to building strong and welcoming cultures that help develop others.
  • Experience coordinating work across multiple teams simultaneously.
  • Ability to translate technical details into clear status updates for non-technical stakeholders.
  • Ability to identify risks early and support timely resolution.
  • Experience that informs belief in Braven’s mission and prepares the candidate to work with or for Braven’s student Fellow population.
  • Experience in the education, government, or nonprofit sector.
  • Ability to collaborate cross-functionally, build relationships, and influence without authority.
  • Verbal and written communication skills to present ideas and content clearly and adapt to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
  • Organizational skills and a proven ability to create and execute detailed project plans and meet deadlines.
  • Comfort seeking, receiving, and implementing constructive feedback, with a commitment to continuous learning and improvement.
  • Authorized to work in the United States.
  • Ability to work in person in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, or Newark three days per week.
  • Ability to travel approximately 2–4 times per year to other Braven locations.
Responsibilities
  • Manage operational and tactical aspects of domain-specific cross-functional projects of varying size, scope, and technical level.
  • Develop and maintain project plans, timelines, and milestones for Systems Team scrums.
  • Create and maintain project documentation and assets, including project charters, schedules, and lessons learned.
  • Own backlog refinement, keep Jira groomed, ensure stories are well-defined, and prepare sprints for work.
  • Partner with Digital Product Management on prioritization and roadmap alignment.
  • Track delivery progress against commitments and proactively flag risks or delays.
  • Run sprint planning and delivery check-ins within existing team scrums to ensure clear goals and realistic commitments.
  • Maintain visibility into team capacity and upcoming work.
  • Coordinate release planning and facilitate go/no-go decisions across technical teams.
  • Drive sprint reviews and demos with internal and cross-functional stakeholders.
  • Ensure timely completion of project deliverables and milestones, with success measured by stakeholder satisfaction and project quality.
  • Identify and gain agreement on project requirements, objectives, scope, timing, and resources with domain stakeholders.
  • Map and track dependencies between Systems, Product, and Volunteer teams.
  • Facilitate cross-functional planning for domain initiatives using existing meetings and asynchronous channels such as Slack and Jira boards.
  • Ensure smooth handoffs between teams.
  • Proactively identify and resolve cross-team blockers before they affect delivery.
  • Collaborate with teammates across projects to identify project risks and develop mitigation strategies.
  • Build and maintain effective working relationships with project stakeholders to support cross-team communication, transparency, and consistency throughout project execution.
  • Prepare regular status reports for domain stakeholders and Systems leadership.
  • Maintain risk and issue logs with clear owners, due dates, and escalation paths.
  • Communicate sprint progress, capacity, and delivery forecasts to stakeholders.
  • Consolidate ad hoc requests through structured channels to shield teams from unnecessary interruptions.
  • Consult with domain stakeholders, including product owners, Program Managers, and subteam leads, to understand needs, prioritize work, surface and help resolve conflicts, and support consistency and alignment on project methodologies.
  • Track and report delivery metrics, including velocity, cycle time, and sprint burndown, to surface trends.
  • Identify process bottlenecks and propose incremental improvements scoped to supported teams.
  • Maintain and improve team documentation, workflows, and Jira/Confluence hygiene.
  • Collaborate with fellow Technical Project Managers to standardize delivery practices across domains.
  • Perform other duties as assigned.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience in the education, government, or nonprofit sector.
  • Certified Scrum Master or Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.
  • Experience working directly with technical teams, including engineering, DevOps, Salesforce development, or platform infrastructure.
  • Familiarity with software development, the Salesforce development lifecycle, and emerging technologies.
  • Experience coordinating work across multiple teams simultaneously.

About the company

Braven is a non-profit that partners with colleges, employers, and funders to help underrepresented and first-generation students move from college to strong first jobs. It delivers career readiness through the Braven Accelerator, a semester-long, credit-bearing course that blends online modules with in-person labs, with Fellows working in cohorts and receiving guidance from volunteer professionals. After the accelerator, Fellows get ongoing support via alumni programs, mentoring, and access to internships and jobs, guided by volunteer Leadership Coaches who also develop their own management skills. Braven works with public universities like San José State, National Louis University, Rutgers University–Newark, and Spelman College, and also offers BravenX, a fully virtual version with stipends for students outside partner campuses, all aimed at expanding networks, skills, and pathways to quality jobs and education equity.

Company Size

1,001-5,000

Company Stage

Grant

Total Funding

$1M

Headquarters

Chicago, Illinois

Founded

2013

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Braven raised commitments to $146M by February 2026, financing near-term expansion.
  • Anthony Pinder joined July 20, 2026, strengthening higher-education partnership sales.
  • Kean targets 1,000 students yearly by 2028, validating Braven’s campus demand.

What critics are saying

  • Braven needs $333M through 2030; missing commitments stalls the scale plan.
  • Employer and philanthropy supply 93% of revenue, exposing Braven to partner churn.
  • If outcomes slip while scaling to 50,000 students, universities will replace Braven.

What makes Braven unique

  • Braven embeds credit-bearing career courses into universities, not standalone workshops.
  • Its FY26-FY30 plan ties scaling to employers, schools, and volunteer Leadership Coaches.
  • Braven’s 2026 partnerships span San José State, Rutgers-Newark, Spelman, Kean, and UMass Lowell.

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Benefits

  • Unlimited Paid Time Off
  • 401(k) Company Match
  • Health Insurance
  • Parental Leave
  • Sabbatical Leave
  • Hybrid Work Options
  • Fertility Treatment Support
  • Family Planning Benefits

Growth & Insights and Company News

6 month growth

-1%

1 year growth

6%

2 year growth

10%
DRK Foundation
Nov 3rd, 2023
Braven

The Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation finds, funds and supports early stage, high impact social enterprises that are tackling some of the world’s most challenging problems. Borrowed from our venture capital legacy we find exceptional entrepreneurs, provide them with 3 years of unrestricted capital and provide rigorous on-going support by joining their board of directors for the 3 years of the grant and partnering with the leader to help them to build capacity in their organization and scale their impact.

Global Fintech Series
Oct 27th, 2022
Braven Receives $1 Million Investment from Barclays

Braven, announced it has received a significant two-year commitment from Barclays to support its mission to close the education-to-employment gap in higher education.

PR Newswire
Jun 14th, 2022
CD&R Foundation Makes Inaugural Grants to Non-Profit Organizations

/PRNewswire/ -- Clayton Dubilier & Rice ("CD&R" or the "Firm") today announced that the CD&R Foundation (the "Foundation"), which launched last year to...