Senior Level Program Management Specialist Jobs

Our mission is to create the Experience of a Lifetime for our employees, so they can, in turn, create the Experience of a Lifetime for our guests. We own and operate the most renowned destination resorts in the world as well as regional and local ski areas outside major cities, and connect them all through one unrivaled network. We are looking for ambitious leaders, innovators and creators to join our talented team. If you’re ready to pursue your fullest potential, we want to get to know you!

Candidates for year-round positions are reviewed on a rolling basis. Applications will be accepted up to 90 days after the posting date, or until the position is filled (whichever is first).

Job Summary:

The Senior Program Manager is accountable for the successful delivery and adoption of strategic technology programs that span multiple teams, business functions, and stakeholder groups. This role serves as the central point of coordination and accountability across the program, ensuring business objectives, technology delivery, operational readiness, and organizational change activities remain aligned. By connecting strategy to execution, the Senior Program Manager drives integrated planning, dependency management, stakeholder alignment, and change readiness to enable successful business outcomes.

Working across business and technology functions, the Senior Program Manager partners with Delivery Managers, Agile Scrum Masters, Product Managers, technical leaders, Finance partners, and vendors to coordinate execution, manage interdependencies, resolve cross-functional barriers, and maintain program health. The role synthesizes information across workstreams, translating complex delivery, financial, and operational data into actionable insights and recommendations for leadership.

Success in this role requires strong program leadership, executive communication, financial management, and change management capabilities. The Senior Program Manager anticipates impacts across teams, enables informed decision-making, and ensures stakeholders remain aligned from initial planning through implementation, adoption, and value realization.

Job Specifications:

• Starting Wage: $88,609.00 - $126,585.00 + Annual Bonus
• Employment Type: Year Round
• Shift Type: Full Time hours available
• Minimum Age: At least 18 years of age
• Housing Availability: No

Job Responsibilities:

Drive

Achieve program outcomes through integrated planning, program governance, and disciplined execution in partnership with Senior Delivery Managers.

• Own overall program success, including program objectives, success measures, delivery baselines, decision rights, and accountability across participating teams.
• Develop and maintain an integrated program plan that connects the roadmaps, milestones, deliverables, dependencies, and critical paths of multiple delivery teams and workstreams.
• Establish fit-for-purpose governance that supports timely decisions, clear accountability, risk management, reporting, and appropriate delivery controls.
• Monitor performance against program commitments and drive timely corrective action when scope, schedule, cost, quality, or resources vary from plan.
• Hold delivery teams and workstream owners accountable for commitments while maintaining accountability for the collective program outcome.
• Ensure program decisions and delivery trade-offs remain aligned with business priorities, expected value, and the approved investment.

Connect

Create alignment by connecting information, decisions, and outcomes across stakeholder groups.

• Serve as the central integration point across business stakeholders, Product, Technology, Finance, Operations, delivery teams, vendors, and executive leadership.
• Connect information across workstreams to identify patterns, conflicts, decisions, and downstream impacts that may not be visible within an individual delivery team.
• Establish and maintain a program communication strategy that delivers the right information to the right stakeholders at the appropriate level of detail.
• Develop and present concise, executive-ready program updates that clearly communicate overall health, accomplishments, financial position, material risks, dependencies, decisions, and required leadership actions.
• Lead program governance forums, steering committees, executive reviews, and cross-functional planning sessions.
• Translate detailed technical, operational, and financial information into a clear program narrative that enables timely executive decisions.
• Create shared understanding of program priorities, expected outcomes, critical milestones, and trade-offs across stakeholder groups.
• Build trusted relationships across organizational levels, creating transparency and alignment between executive direction and delivery-team execution.
• Partner with Delivery Managers and Agile Scrum Masters to understand team-level health while ensuring communication and escalation remain coordinated at the program level.
• Maintain clear records of key decisions, changes, assumptions, and commitments to preserve alignment and accountability throughout the program lifecycle.

Develop

Build program-management discipline and enable delivery teams to succeed collectively.

• Establish a program operating model that defines roles, responsibilities, governance forums, decision paths, escalation thresholds, and delivery expectations.
• Coach Delivery Managers and workstream leads on integrated planning, dependency management, risk identification, forecasting, and executive communication.
• Create consistent program practices for status reporting, milestone management, decision tracking, change control, and financial forecasting.
• Encourage teams to think beyond individual deliverables and understand how their commitments contribute to broader program outcomes.
• Facilitate integrated planning and lessons-learned sessions to improve coordination, predictability, and delivery effectiveness across workstreams.
• Use program metrics, delivery insights, financial trends, and stakeholder feedback to identify opportunities for continuous improvement.
• Promote clear accountability while creating an environment where teams can raise risks, challenge assumptions, and escalate concerns early.
• Lead through influence and shared purpose, building alignment among teams and leaders who may not report directly to the Senior Program Manager.
• Contribute reusable program-management practices, templates, and lessons learned that strengthen delivery maturity across GXT.

Out Front

Anticipate program-level impacts, manage complexity, and enable proactive decision-making.

• Identify and actively manage interdependencies among delivery teams, technical platforms, vendors, business functions, operational groups, and major milestones.
• Establish a program-level dependency management process that documents upstream and downstream relationships, owners, required dates, impacts, and escalation paths.
• Evaluate how changes within one workstream may affect other teams, the integrated timeline, program costs, operational readiness, or expected outcomes.
• Maintain an integrated view of program risks, issues, assumptions, and decisions, distinguishing team-level concerns from risks requiring program or executive action.
• Anticipate emerging constraints and develop mitigation, contingency, recovery, or resequencing recommendations before program commitments are affected.
• Escalate material changes and decisions with a clear explanation of business impact, delivery implications, options, trade-offs, and recommended action.
• Challenge teams and stakeholders to resolve conflicts based on overall program success rather than optimizing for an individual workstream.
• Adapt governance, planning, and communication approaches as program complexity, risk, and stakeholder needs evolve.
• Maintain forward-looking visibility into upcoming decisions, dependencies, resource constraints, financial pressures, and operational-readiness requirements.

Program Financial Management

• Own the consolidated program budget and provide accurate visibility into overall financial health.
• Develop and maintain integrated financial plans across internal labor, contractors, software, vendors, infrastructure, and other program costs.
• Track actuals, forecasts, commitments, accruals, purchase orders, invoices, and financial variances across workstreams.
• Partner with Finance, Delivery Managers, and vendor owners to validate forecasts and reconcile program financial information.
• Identify emerging budget pressures, forecast variances, funding gaps, and financial risks early.
• Assess the financial impact of scope changes, schedule changes, resource decisions, vendor performance issues, and program trade-offs.
• Prepare clear explanations of financial position and variance drivers for executive and governance audiences.
• Ensure proposed changes follow established financial and program governance processes before commitments are made.
• Support annual capital and expense planning, business-case updates, and investment reviews associated with the program.
• Hold workstream owners accountable for accurate and timely financial inputs while maintaining accountability for the complete program financial picture.

Job Requirements:

Program Leadership

• 8+ years of experience leading complex technology programs, large-scale initiatives, or interconnected projects.
• Demonstrated success managing programs involving multiple delivery teams, business functions, technology platforms, and external partners.
• Proven ability to establish program direction, integrated plans, governance, accountability, and success measures.
• Experience leading through influence in a matrixed environment without relying on direct reporting authority.
• Ability to balance strategic program outcomes with the execution detail needed to identify risks and maintain delivery confidence.
• Experience managing programs from initial definition and planning through implementation, operational transition, and closure.

Integrated Planning & Dependency Management

• Demonstrated ability to develop and manage integrated program plans across multiple workstreams.
• Experience identifying and managing cross-team dependencies, critical paths, milestones, assumptions, and integration points.
• Ability to analyze changes within individual workstreams and determine their impact on the broader program.
• Experience coordinating technical delivery, business readiness, operations, vendors, and organizational change.
• Strong understanding of Agile, predictive, and hybrid delivery methods, with the judgment to apply the appropriate approach to each workstream.

Change Management

• Develop and execute program-level change management strategies that support successful adoption of new processes, technologies, operating models, and ways of working.
• Partner with business leaders, Product Managers, Operations teams, HR, Learning, and Communications partners to ensure readiness activities are aligned with program objectives.
• Assess organizational impacts across stakeholder groups and develop plans to address adoption risks, resistance, training needs, communication gaps, and process changes.
• Establish and maintain a program readiness roadmap that integrates business readiness, operational readiness, training, communication, deployment, and adoption activities.
• Ensure stakeholder groups understand upcoming changes, expected benefits, new responsibilities, and timelines through proactive communication and engagement.
• Coordinate change champions, business SMEs, and functional leaders to build alignment and sustain momentum throughout the program lifecycle.
• Define and measure adoption, readiness, and value realization metrics, using insights to adjust change strategies and improve program outcomes.
• Facilitate executive alignment on change impacts, organizational risks, and mitigation plans while ensuring key decisions are communicated effectively throughout the organization.
• Partner with Delivery Managers and business stakeholders to ensure team-level delivery activities remain aligned with broader organizational change objectives.
• Support post-launch stabilization, adoption monitoring, and realization of expected business outcomes through warranty, hyper-care, and transition-to-operations activities.

Financial & Commercial Management

• Demonstrated experience managing large program budgets, forecasts, financial controls, and investment reporting.
• Strong understanding of capital and operating expenses, labor forecasting, vendor spend, accruals, purchase commitments, and variance management.
• Experience managing vendors, statements of work, contract deliverables, invoices, and commercial performance.
• Ability to connect financial information to program scope, schedule, resources, risks, and executive decisions.

Executive Communication & Stakeholder Leadership

• Exceptional written, verbal, presentation, and facilitation skills.
• Demonstrated ability to prepare and deliver executive-level presentations, steering-committee materials, decision papers, and program recommendations.
• Ability to synthesize complex business, technical, financial, and operational information into concise and actionable insights.
• Experience communicating with executives, business leaders, technical teams, vendors, and operational stakeholders.
• Strong judgment regarding what information requires executive visibility, what can be resolved within the program, and when escalation is necessary.
• Ability to facilitate difficult conversations, clarify decisions, and build alignment across stakeholder groups with competing priorities.

Governance, Risk & Decision Management

• Experience establishing and leading program governance, decision forums, reporting cadences, and escalation processes.
• Strong risk, issue, assumption, dependency, and change-management capabilities.
• Ability to develop practical mitigation and contingency strategies for complex program risks.
• Experience defining decision rights, accountability, escalation thresholds, and governance controls appropriate to program complexity.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to use program data and trends to assess delivery confidence and recommend action.

Education & Certifications

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Technology, Engineering, Program Management, or a related field.
• Advanced degree or equivalent business and technology leadership experience preferred.
• PMP or PgMP certification preferred.
• Agile, SAFe, Scrum, or equivalent delivery certification preferred.

The expected Total Compensation for this role is $88,609.00 - $126,585.00 + Annual Bonus. Individual compensation decisions are based on a variety of factors.

Job Benefits

• Ski/Mountain Perks! Free passes for employees, employee discounted lift tickets for friends and family AND free ski lessons
• MORE employee discounts on lodging, food, gear, and mountain shuttles
• 401(k) Retirement Plan
• Employee Assistance Program
• Excellent training and professional development

Full Time roles are eligible for the above, plus:

• Health Insurance; Medical Insurance, Dental Insurance, and Vision Insurance plans (for eligible seasonal employees after working 500 hours)
• Free ski passes for dependents
• Critical Illness and Accident plans

Vail Resorts offers a ‘Hybrid’ work environment where employees living within 50 miles of the Broomfield office work on-site Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and have flexibility to work off-site on Mondays and Fridays. Employees living outside of a commutable distance can work remotely from British Columbia, Washington D.C., and the 16 U.S. states* in which we currently operate. This includes: California, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, Vermont, Washington State, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Please note that the ability to work in person or off-site, and the particulars related to such work, are subject to change at any time; and, accordingly, the Company reserves the right to change its policies and/or require in-person/in-office work or off-site work at any time in its sole discretion.

In completing this application, and when submitting related documentation, applicants may redact information that identifies their age, date of birth, and/or dates of attendance at or graduation from an educational institution.

We follow all federal, state, and local laws including restrictions on child/minor labor. Minors hired into this position will not be asked or permitted to engage in any activities restricted to adult workers.

Vail Resorts is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, protected veteran status or any other status protected by applicable law.

Requisition ID 518835

Reference Date: 11/13/2026

Job Code Function: Project Management