Senior Program Manager, Vendor and Scaled Operations

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Canada, +2 more countries.

📋 Description

• Take charge of Thumbtack's vendor and outsourcing strategy for Service Operations, encompassing sourcing decisions, make-versus-buy recommendations, capacity strategies, and partner expansion, consolidation, or exit scenarios.

• Manage commercial relationships with Legal, Finance, and Procurement, which includes SOWs, rate structures, SLA credits and remedies, and renewals.

• Create and enhance vendor-performance governance, incorporating SLA and scorecard frameworks, QBRs, decision rights, escalation channels, and remediation playbooks.

• Oversee a portfolio of scaled operations and partner-support initiatives, determining strategies, sequencing tasks, prioritizing projects, and making capacity-related decisions.

• Establish operational rhythms that include cadences, decision logs, dependency tracking, escalation thresholds, and change communication.

• Develop measurement frameworks that assess quality, SLA compliance, forecast accuracy, cost-to-serve, and leading indicators.

• Align senior leaders across Service Operations, IT, Legal, Finance, Product, and Workforce Management regarding sourcing priorities and trade-offs.

• Foster adoption among teams and partners even without direct reporting authority.

• Identify and implement AI and automation solutions to decrease coordination overhead and enhance oversight.

• Mentor program managers and embed effective practices into playbooks and standards.

⛳️ Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in program or project management.

• 3+ years of managing vendor, BPO, or outsourced delivery relationships at scale.

• Experience with multiple vendors, various locations, or vendor transitions is highly preferred.

• Proficient in program management tools such as Jira, Linear, Coda, or Smartsheet.

• Fluent in both Agile and Waterfall methodologies.

• PMP, PgMP, or an equivalent certification is a plus.

• Comprehensive ownership of outsourcing relationships, covering commercial terms, governance, performance management, escalation, and challenging vendor discussions.

• Proven experience in constructing and defending make-versus-buy or vendor expansion cases incorporating cost, quality, and risk assessments.

• Experience in managing multiple concurrent large-scale programs with portfolio trade-offs and prioritization decisions.

• Skilled in designing repeatable operations and detecting degradation through leading indicators.

• Demonstrated history of developing sustainable infrastructure such as SLA and scorecard frameworks, governance models, transition playbooks, and reporting systems.

• Experience in building and maintaining models, dashboards, and SLA tracking tools.

• Ability to devise strategies in ambiguous environments.

• Background in mentoring program managers or disseminating practices among teams.

🏝️ Benefits

• Variable pay may be included in total cash compensation.

• Reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities during the application process.