Program Manager

At EPIX, we dream, design and develop the media world we want to live in - then, we make it a reality for all of our users, no matter what platform they’re watching us on. 

 Being part of the Digital team at EPIX means:

• You’re cool with working on lots of awesome things, often at the same time
• You like perfect, but you operate in Agile so you respect the build/iterate/optimize approach
• You’re willing to fail in order to innovate, and unafraid to dabble in things like chatbots, AR, VR and whatever else is new or cool
• You thrive in a world where micromanagement isn’t a thing
• You’re as big a fan of movies and TV as we are, but have an even greater obsession with working on a team filled with smart, fun, opinionated people united in building solutions for whatever comes our way. 

The EPIX team is passionate, energetic, motivated, lean and fun. We believe deeply in collaboration - editorial works with development, design tests with QA, and operations collaborates with product - and we all come together to power 253 devices, plus a Honda, in-house. We’ve got personality for days, aren’t afraid of a challenge or deadline, and are committed to providing our users with a best in class experience.  

Candidates who do not like Slack, doughnuts, GIFs, Hackathons (and subsequent prizing), campy movie posters, chocolate, ping pong/shuffleboard battles as a means to settle debates, and winning lots of awards, need not apply.

The Program Manager is a central member of the EPIX digital team, channeling an infectious can-do attitude, organizing the team and its resources to succeed across sprint efforts, and championing an approach that works best for it based on the overall velocity and potential output. The PM will oversee the efforts to develop and improve EPIX and MGM’s product line, backend and operations.

 As the Program Manager you will plan sprints, monitor sprint progress and work on efficiencies from one sprint to the next. You will have a strong background in juggling multiple priorities and experience working with a large development team as well as product, editorial and design teams.   

What you will do:

• Responsible for the management of key digital team projects, working in partnership with digital team stakeholders, using a variety of techniques including Waterfall, Agile/Scrum, Kanban and others.
• Responsible for pre-project planning, project kickoff facilitation, creation of project plan, overseeing successful execution of project plan with timely communication to all project stakeholders, optimizing communication through face-to-face discussions, meetings, email, Gantt chart preparation and other techniques.
• Serve as both project manager and scrum master, utilizing EPIX project frameworks in both Agile and traditional project management approaches.
• Take an active leadership role in the team and create an environment that fosters the prescribed agile methods and processes.
• Organize ideation sessions and prepare the team for the work to come from initiatives.
• Identify issues proactively, resolve conflicts, escalate if necessary, and work across the organization to execute the project.
• Jira expert: organize Jira in an effective way and have the team follow your lead and produce individual and team level reports from Jira to improve efficiencies.
• Facilitate the creation of a well-defined and well-groomed Project Backlog or Project Plan.
• Work with offshore development teams, when applicable, to tightly integrate them into project work streams.
• Pull together upfront estimates of time and resource utilization. Facilitate change control and risk mitigation.
• Analyze risk and mitigation accordingly, including establishing contingency plans, and initiating corrective action.
• Track and report key /sprint project metrics and capital budgets where applicable.
• Governance and curation of team productivity solutions such as Basecamp, Slack, Confluence/Jira.
• Responsible for gathering requirements, evaluating and selecting the best tools for the team and its needs, coordinating training for team members, curating to make sure team communication and information share is optimized.
• Work closely with Product, Engineering, Operations, and Editorial on documentation/specification authoring, including product specifications, API specifications, RFP creation, etc. 

What you will need:

• 3-4 years of experience managing technical projects
• 4-5 years of experience with Agile or Lean methodologies, software engineering practices, and traditional project management approaches
• Bachelor’s degree, or equivalent experience
• Certified Scrum Master and PMP certification highly desirable
• Experience managing projects involving responsive web design and development highly desirable
• Experience managing projects involving mobile products (e.g., apps for iOS, Android, etc.) desirable
• Experience managing projects within a media company and/or in an online businesses environment
• Ability to understand technologies applicable to a chosen project and facilitate resolution of technical issues as they arise
• Ability to lead and motivate people to encourage performance and teamwork
• Demonstrated working partnership with software developers, technical and business management, department heads, product developers and QA teams
• Possess superb written and verbal communications and presentation skills.