Manager, SW Program Management Team

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.

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