Program Manager, PDLC

Vasion

$90K — $120K *
Lehi, UT 84043In-Person
Enterprise Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5-8 years of program management experience in software
  • Experience with cross-functional programs in multiple phases of product development
  • Direct experience working embedded within engineering/product teams
  • Involvement in process or operating model changes
  • Familiarity with Atlassian tools (Jira/Confluence), Notion, or Adobe Workfront
  • B2B SaaS or enterprise software background preferred

Responsibilities

  • Model and promote the PDLC framework among teams
  • Coach team members on PDLC practices in a supportive manner
  • Build trust through partnership rather than authority
  • Communicate the benefits of PDLC to engineering teams
  • Collaborate with leadership to enhance processes and documentation
  • Drive the complete lifecycle of assigned programs from Discovery to Grow
  • Facilitate cross-functional syncs, reviews, and outcome-driven kickoffs

Benefits

  • Flexible work environment
  • Discretionary Vacation Bonus
  • Flexible paid time off
  • Paid parental leave
  • Training/Advancement opportunities
  • 401k with company match and immediate vesting
  • Mental Wellness Support
  • Company-contributed HSA
  • Onsite perks including gym, snacks, and arcade
Full Job Description
About the Role

Vasion is adopting a Product Development Life Cycle, a cross-company operating model designed to bring just enough structure to how we build and ship software. As a Program Manager on the PDLC team, you will be one of the people who makes it real.

This is not a coordination role. You will not be tracking status and scheduling syncs. You will be embedded across engineering and product management teams as a practitioner, coach, and change agent helping teams not just follow the PDLC, but understand it, trust it, and work inside it naturally.

You will split your time between two things: operating the PDLC across active programs day-to-day, and helping build and improve the framework itself. Your perspective from inside the teams will actively shape how the system evolves. Vasion's engineering organization is also moving toward agent-native development, which means genuine curiosity about AI is part of the job.
What You Will Do

PDLC Adoption and Change Enablement
  • Operate as an embedded PDLC practitioner, modeling the framework and helping cross-functional partners understand why it exists and how to use it
  • Coach engineering and product management team members on PDLC practices by meeting them where they are, not where the playbook says they should be
  • Build trust through consistency, follow-through, and genuine partnership, not process authority
  • Communicate the value of the PDLC to engineering clearly and often: reduced context-switching, clearer scope handoffs, fewer rebuilds, better predictability

PDLC Framework Contribution and Development
  • Partner with the VP of PgM to build, document, and refine processes, templates, stage gate criteria, and governance standards
  • Develop and maintain playbooks and documentation that make the PDLC accessible across Product Management and Engineering
  • Translate on-the-ground experience into framework improvements

End-to-End Program Management
  • Own the full lifecycle of assigned programs from Discovery through Grow: scope, timelines, milestones, dependencies, and deliverables at every stage
  • Build program plans that give Product Management, Engineering, Design, QA, and Go-to-Market a shared view of what is happening, what is next, and who owns what
  • Stay ahead of risks and blockers; bring well-reasoned options to the VP before problems compound
  • Facilitate kick-offs, stage gate reviews, cross-functional syncs, and retrospectives to drive clear outcomes and documented next steps every time

Cross-Functional Alignment and Communication
  • Serve as the day-to-day coordination point between Product Management, Engineering, Design, QA, and Go-to-Market for programs in your portfolio
  • Surface and resolve cross-team misalignments and dependency conflicts before they impact delivery

Reporting and Documentation
  • Maintain accurate, up-to-date program documentation throughout the full lifecycle
  • Treat documentation as a core part of program quality in order to make programs reproducible, learnable, and increasingly agent-ready

Requirements
  • 5-8 years of program management experience in software, at the program level across multiple teams
  • Cross-functional programs through multiple phases of a product or software development lifecycle
  • Embedded directly within engineering and/or product management teams, not a centralized PMO
  • Participated in or drove a process or operating model change
  • Fluency with Atlassian (Jira/Confluence), Notion, and/or Adobe Workfront
  • B2B SaaS or enterprise software experience strongly preferred

Preferred Experience
  • Dual-track agile, Shape Up, OKR-based planning, or similar lean frameworks
  • Product management discovery concepts: opportunity mapping, user story mapping, hypothesis-driven development
  • Supported both product management and engineering within the same organization
  • High-growth or PE-backed software environment

Skills and Attributes
  • Drives alignment through credibility and partnership, not role authority
  • Understands why a process step exists and can explain it plainly to skeptical teams
  • Decomposes complex initiatives into legible phases without over-engineering
  • Genuinely curious about AI and already using it
  • Treats friction as information, not failure
  • Cares about the outcome more than the credit

Education
  • Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience required
  • PMP, CSM, PMI-ACP, or equivalent a plus
Bonus
  • Helped a skeptical engineering or product management team adopt a new way of working and can describe specifically what it took
  • Contributed to building a PDLC or SDLC framework from scratch
  • Has a working mental model of what makes cross-functional alignment hard and specific tactics used to address it
Why This Role, Why Now

Vasion is building something most growing software companies underinvest in until it is too late: a mature, scalable, and genuinely useful Product Development Life Cycle. You would be joining at the ground floor of that build, working directly alongside a VP invested in your development, on programs visible across the entire Product and Engineering organization, in a culture that rewards initiative and ownership.

Benefits
  • Flexible work environment
  • Discretionary Vacation Bonus
  • Flexible paid time off
  • Paid parental leave
  • Competitive pay
  • A full suite of traditional benefits
  • Training/Advancement opportunities
  • 401k with company match and immediate vesting
  • Financial wellness education
  • Mental Wellness Support
  • Company-contributed HSA
  • Onsite perks include gym, pickleball, snacks & drinks, arcade, theater room, etc.

Similar Jobs

More Jobs at Vasion

More Enterprise Technology Jobs

Find similar Program Manager, PDLC jobs: