Senior Program Manager – Finance Systems

Upwork ($UPWK) is the world's work marketplace. We serve everyone from one-person startups to over 30% of the Fortune 100 with a powerful, trust-driven platform that enables companies and talent to work together in new ways that unlock their potential.
Last year, more than $3.3 billion of work was done through Upwork by skilled professionals who are gaining more control by finding work they are passionate about and innovating their careers.
Love what you do, do what you love.
Excel is great, but at some point it doesn't scale. Implementing great internal software and tools can be a game changer, especially when it has to work in collaboration with the largest freelancing platform with over three million jobs posted annually. We are Upwork. The World's Work Marketplace. Upwork connects businesses with independent professionals and agencies around the globe.
Upwork has an immediate opening in the Financial System's team. We are looking for an experienced program manager to provide cross-functional leadership chartered with expanding our finance systems offerings as they integrate with our world-class Upwork.com platform. In this role, the candidate will be part of a team that collaborates with business finance and technical teams to deliver solutions that are highly scalable, integrated, secure, and flexible.
As the Senior Program Manager for the Finance Systems team you will be working closely with teams within the CFO organization such as the financial systems team, accounting operations teams, tax, treasury, and others and represent the financial systems team to various stakeholders. In addition you will be working with other software engineering teams within Upwork, to coordinate the assessment, adoption and testing of new features in our Financial systems ecosystem of applications. This role will also involve facilitating architecture discussions or feedback on application designs; providing input on company-wide initiatives; embedding in engineering teams to jump start complex projects.
This is a remote role, preferred working hours are around central and pacific time-zones. As of now this position reports to the Senior Director of Finance systems.
If this sounds exciting, the Senior Program Manager - Finance & Business Systems could be for you!
Your Responsibilities:

• Lead: Successfully lead delivery of projects according to the waterfall, iterative and agile methodologies

• Define & Create : You will be given some amount of autonomy to create and define Project Management standards and governance mechanisms. Ensure effective ownership and execution of an agile based systems development lifecycle methodology.

• Own and Manage : Own and manage lifecycle activities from beginning to end (backlog planning, requirements gathering, technology team partnerships, UAT planning and performance, project closing, and stakeholder engagement) for multiple projects simultaneously. Coordinate the contributions of external consultants, business functional leads, SMEs and Developers, as well as other stakeholders from across the organization.

• Govern: Lead effective project / program governance and stakeholder management, ensuring adequate understanding of timelines, resource needs, risks, contentions, and dependencies

• Problem Solver : Manage and resolve complex business issues arising from the implementation of new features, from the Upwork platform as it relates to Finance systems and reporting. Escalating decisions as appropriate to Finance systems leadership as needed

• Consult : You'll operate as a valued consultative partner with many different stakeholder teams across Upwork. Coordinate with internal departments to assist in accomplishing the project goals. Work with others in a coordinated and professional way to create a team environment that achieves project success

• Make Decisions: You'll be an empowered, impactful decision maker who drives the direction of a project to completion.

• Metrics: Ensure measurable KPIs are developed for the program, and that they align to the overall KPIs for the CFO Org.

• Collaborate : Launch readiness across all stakeholders and teams frequently and transparently including retrospectives to learn from. You are able to identify potential technical risks and facilitate discussions to surface and plan mitigation strategies. You can lead technology-focused discussions with senior leadership by providing valuable insights and recommendations that guide technology-based decisions.

• Systems Experience: Manage a coordinated approach to ERP-related business process changes and technical system integration across all related ERP domains to ensure the integrity of the overall design. Ensure domain-specific project management tasks for the Financial systems program are being effectively conducted and delivered. Where necessary backup support in technical and functional management of the team.

• Gatekeeper: Create and manage clear Gating Criteria with business partners for Go/No-go decisions.

• Planner: Organize and lead planning activities resulting in the creation of a release/program roadmap. Ensure all teams align with enterprise planning expectations.

• Your Team : Long term - build and lead a team of program managers, process managers and technical program managers with a mission to manage the entire Financial Systems program. You will develop a program management organization that embeds responsible delivery practices in all of our programs

What it takes to catch our eye:

• The ideal candidate will have a deep diversified experience in the following three disciplines - Accounting, Program Management and Finance Systems. Experience should cover financial processes, project management, accounting, coordinating requirements documentation, process design, and user acceptance testing responsibilities.

• Experience in the areas of payments, tax, reporting, SOX and information security to help coordinate requirements and solutions with various teams such as product management, business systems and reporting.

• Demonstrated experience in leading small to midsize teams to accomplish unusually complex challenges is expected.

• Successful track record of managing complex development programs to deliver technical solutions and achieve business results, positively impacting the internal customer experience.

• Demonstrated success in holding project teams accountable for commitments, removing roadblocks, and leveraging organizational resources to improve capacity for project work.

• Team player who collaborates with colleagues and ensure adherence to timelines, facilitate team meetings and communicate project status, risks and issues in a concise and professional manner

• Strong organizational skills including attention to detail and multitasking skills

• Proven ability to develop effective, matrixed, cross-organization relationships, collaborating and communicating across business and technology stakeholders and multiple geographies and influencing mid and senior level management and key stakeholders

• ERP systems knowledge is required (Oracle, SAP) and experience with implementing new features from upstream systems and anticipating their downstream with other business applications in the Financial systems applications portfolio

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

• Strong technical acumen and strong voice of internal customers across the program delivery lifecycle.

• Good domain knowledge of project management process, project management software tools, templates and management techniques

• Experience with different software development methodologies including the agile development methodology such as Scrum

• Success in developing program/project level artifacts to support a major software implementation program with concurrent releases

The annual base salary for this position in California and Washington ranges from $145,000 - $196,000. The range displayed reflects the minimum and maximum salary for this position in California and Washington, and individual base pay will depend on your skills, qualifications, experience, and location. Additionally, this position is eligible for the annual bonus plan or sales incentive plan and eligibility to participate in our long term equity incentive program.
Come change how the world works.
At Upwork, you'll shape talent solutions for how the world works today. We are a remote-first organization working together to create exciting remote work opportunities for a global community of professionals. While we have physical offices in San Francisco and Chicago, currently we also support hiring of corporate full-time employees in 19 states in the United States. Please speak with a member of our recruitment team to determine whether you are located in a state in which we are hiring corporate full-time employees.
Our vibrant culture is built on shared values and our mission to create economic opportunities so that people have better lives. We foster amazing teams, put our community first, and have a bias toward action. We encourage everyone to bring their whole selves to work and grow together through development opportunities, mentorship, and employee resource groups. And oh yeah, we've also got amazing benefits - including medical insurance for you and your family, unlimited PTO, 401(k) with matching, 12 weeks of paid parental leave, and a generous Employee Stock Purchase Plan. Check out our Life at Upwork page to learn more about our benefits and the employee experience.
Check out our Life at Upwork page to learn more about the employee experience.
Upwork is proudly committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse and inclusive workforce. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we never discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical condition), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.
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