Principal Program Manager, P&E Operations

We engage the most inspired minds to do their best work wherever they work best—powering the freedom to create worldwide.

WP Engine is the most trusted WordPress technology company, powering over 1.5M digital experiences in 150+ countries for businesses of all sizes. WP Engine’s all-in-one platform enables customers to design, build, power, and manage extraordinary WordPress, eCommerce, and headless sites—all thanks to a nonstop commitment to innovation, award-winning WordPress expertise, and a set of core values that guides us every day.

What is Cool About This Job?

We are a leading SaaS/PaaS company at the forefront of Managed wordpress hosting, we empower organizations of all sizes to innovate, scale, and thrive in the digital era with their online presence. We are a company with a great culture, maturing into stable profitable growth. We are on a mission to elevate our operational culture to elite levels. We are excited to take on this challenge and are seeking a seasoned Senior/Principal Operations professional who has experience leading operational transformations with a relationship driven, people centric mindset to join our team. 

Position Overview: This pivotal role will drive operational excellence across the organization, fostering a culture of efficiency, collaboration, and continuous improvement. The ideal candidate will bring a wealth of experience in operational cadence practices and tools, coupled with a strategic mindset to lead change and influence stakeholders at all levels.

The Person that will be most successful in this role will have a proven track record of identifying operational problems, proposing solutions after scoping scrappy short term and robust long term approaches that leverage best practices and implementing these solutions with a close lens on both qualitative people centric measures and quantitative results and trends.

The Day to Day:

• Operational Strategy: Develop and implement strategies to optimize operational efficiency within the Product and Engineering department, aligning with overall company objectives.

• Process Improvement: Lead initiatives to streamline processes, eliminate redundancies, and enhance productivity through effective change management.

• Operational Cadence: Establish and maintain effective operational cadence practices, ensuring timely and transparent communication across teams and departments.

• Tools and Systems: Evaluate, implement, and manage tools and systems that support operational excellence, productivity, and collaboration.

• Metrics and Reporting: Define key performance indicators (KPIs) and establish reporting mechanisms to track, analyze, and present operational metrics to leadership.

• Change Leadership: Champion operational changes and initiatives, driving adoption and ensuring successful implementation through effective change management techniques. 

• Cross-functional Collaboration: Collaborate closely with other roles and departments such as Product Operations, Product and Engineering leaders, Agile Coaches, The Enterprise Portfolio Management office, Sales, Customer Success, and Finance leaders to align operational strategies and initiatives company-wide.

• Thought Leadership: Stay abreast of industry best practices, emerging trends, and technologies in operational excellence. Incorporate innovative solutions to help us scale and produce insights to drive continuous improvement.

Your Expertise and Passions

• Experience: 8+ years of experience in operations or related roles preferably within SaaS/PaaS companies, with demonstrated progression to senior or principal levels.

• Leadership: Proven track record in leading cross-functional team to deliver operational improvement initiatives from conception to execution.

• Communication: Exceptional verbal and written communication skills with the ability to articulate complex ideas and strategies clearly and effectively.

• Change Management: Expertise in change leadership, with a strong ability to influence stakeholders at all levels of the organization and people centric approach to leading change.

• Analytical Skills: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to leverage data to drive decision-making and measure outcomes.

• Sound understanding of the software development life cycle, product development lifecycle , Lean / Agile portfolio management and change management frameworks

• Passionate about driving desired outcomes over adhering to strict frameworks 

•  Strong desire to create an environment where people can thrive and have fun, while getting stuff done!

Preferred qualifications:

• Education: Bachelor's degree or advanced degree in business or in math, science, engineering, or significant work experience in a related technical field a plus.

• Advanced knowledge or experience with common productivity tools ( Google Suites, Slack, Miro, Etc…) 

• Advanced level experience or knowledge implementing operational tools including metrics platforms, communications tools, portfolio management tools etc… 

• Advanced level experience with Jira and Confluence

• WordPress, Hosting platform experience or DevOps experience a plus

The Perks and Benefits.

• Company Stock Options (Every employee is an owner in the company)

• Health Benefits (100% Paid Employee Medical, Dental, and Vision)

• Pension Scheme with a match

• Life Insurance and Income Protection (100% Paid)

• Supplementary Maternity & Paternity Pay and Caregiver’s Leave

• Employee Assistance Program

• Generous Vacation Time (Who doesn’t like time off)

• Home Office Stipend

• Tax free annual wellness benefit through Clevercards

• 4 Company Wellness Days

• On-going education through LinkedIn Learning, Workday Learning and our Career Growth Portal

• Free annual subscription to Calm

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