Technical Project Manager

DataPerk is celebrating 25 years in business, and we're looking for an experienced Technical Project Manager to help lead us into our next chapter. We were recently recognized among the Top 3 Best Places to Work by the Birmingham Business Journal, and we believe that recognition reflects something important about who we are: great technology starts with great people working together. We're a collaborative, client-focused IT Managed Services Provider where people genuinely support one another, take pride in their work, and care about delivering an exceptional experience for our clients. Now, we're looking for someone who can help us take our project management organization to the next level.

Our Technical Project Manager needs to understand the technology behind the projects and services that we are delivering.

You should be comfortable discussing IT infrastructure, networking, cloud services, cybersecurity, Microsoft technologies, systems implementations, managed services, and the realities of deploying technology in a client environment. You will be working directly with our technical teams and sales team to provide what needs to happen, who needs to do it, how long it should take, what could go wrong, and what it will take to successfully deliver the project. You'll need to recognize when a technical dependency hasn't been addressed, challenge an unrealistic timeline, identify resource constraints before they become problems, and translate technical requirements into a clear plan that everyone from technicians to clients to leadership can understand. If you don't have a strong IT foundation, this position will not be the right fit, regardless of your project management experience.

What You'll Own

As our Technical Project Manager, you'll serve as the central point of coordination between clients, sales, technical teams, vendors, Project Coordinators, scheduling, and leadership. You'll be responsible for ensuring that projects are properly planned, resourced, communicated, executed, and completed.

• Define project scope, objectives, deliverables, milestones, and success criteria.
• Develop and maintain Statements of Work, project plans, schedules, and resource requirements.
• Lead project planning sessions with engineers, technical resources, sales, clients, and other stakeholders.
• Review and validate project estimates, labor requirements, sequencing, and dependencies.
• Identify technical risks, resource constraints, missing requirements, and potential delivery issues before they become problems.
• Coordinate and assign project activities across our technical and project management teams.
• Manage multiple projects simultaneously while maintaining visibility into priorities, deadlines, budgets, and resources.
• Monitor project financial performance, labor consumption, profitability, and scope.
• Manage change requests, scope changes, budget impacts, and schedule adjustments.
• Lead project kickoffs, status meetings, stakeholder reviews, and project closeouts.
• Communicate project status, risks, decisions, accomplishments, and recommendations to clients and internal leadership.
• Serve as an escalation point for project-related issues.
• Coordinate clients, engineers, vendors, sales, scheduling, and internal departments to keep projects moving.
• Maintain accurate project documentation, reporting, and project records.
• Conduct project reviews and identify lessons learned and opportunities for improvement.

You'll Lead People, Not Just Projects

This position is also a leadership role within our Project Management organization. You'll help lead, develop, and mentor our Project Coordinators and play a key role in helping build the next generation of project management talent at DataPerk.

• Assign projects and workloads based on skills, capacity, and priorities.
• Provide coaching, mentoring, and day-to-day guidance to Project Coordinators.
• Help develop Project Coordinators into stronger project managers.
• Establish expectations for communication, organization, accountability, and client      service.
• Train team members on project management principles, systems, processes, and      best practices.
• Serve as a subject matter expert and escalation resource.
• Develop standards, workflows, templates, and documentation.
• Identify opportunities for employee growth and professional development.
• Help create a culture of accountability, consistency, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

We Want You to Transform Project Management

This may be the most exciting part of the role. We're not looking for someone to simply step into an existing process and maintain the status quo. We want you to make it better. Our ideal candidate sees project management as an opportunity to create processes and procedures, metrics, workflows, templates, eliminate inefficiencies, improve communication, maximize our technical resources, and ultimately deliver a better experience for internal teams and our clients. 

 Join DataPerk and help us build the next 25 years!

• Education: Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration, Computer Science, Information Technology, Management Information Systems or Computer Information Systems.
• 5+ years of project management experience.
• Experience managing client-facing technology projects.
• Strong understanding of IT infrastructure, networking, cloud, cybersecurity, managed services, or related technologies.
• Experience coordinating technical resources and project schedules.
• Strong leadership, coaching, and mentoring abilities.
• Excellent communication and organizational skills.
• Ability to manage multiple projects and competing priorities.
• Strong understanding of project scope, budgets, timelines, risks, and resource management.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Must live in the Birmingham, Alabama area or be willing to relocate.
• Must be available to work in our Birmingham office on a full-time, in-person basis.

Preferred:

• Previous MSP experience.
• PMP, CAPM, Scrum Master, or similar certification.
• Experience with Microsoft 365, infrastructure, networking, cybersecurity, cloud migrations, or systems implementations.
• Previous experience leading or supervising project management personnel.
• Experience developing project management processes, standards, and methodologies.