Program specialist h1.location_city

Lead Program Specialist, Energy Efficiency
Location: Must be located within Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Imperial, or San Diego Counties to be considered

Ready to make a difference?
We are seeking an experienced and mission driven Lead Program Specialist to join our Southern California Equitable Building Decarbonization (EBD) team. This role provides operational and strategic leadership for large scale, residential decarbonization programs, with a strong emphasis on equitable delivery, community partnership, and post launch execution excellence.

The Lead Program Specialist will serve as the single point of accountability for program delivery, ensuring performance, quality, compliance, and customer experience goals are consistently met. This individual will work closely with subcontractors, vendors, clients, and internal cross functional teams to deliver affordable, scalable decarbonization solutions—particularly for low income and historically underserved customers.

Travel Requirements: this position requires up to 10% travel in Southern California for in person work, site visits, events and conferences

What You Will Be Doing:
Program Delivery & Performance Management (Post Launch)

• Own day to day operational performance across all program workstreams, ensuring delivery against approved targets, timelines, equity goals, and contractual obligations.
• Monitor production metrics, pipeline health, assessments, construction activity, and project closeout.
• Proactively identify performance risks and drive corrective actions to maintain service levels and delivery momentum.

Operational Leadership & Continuous Improvement

• Ensure program workflows, tools, and standard operating procedures are executed consistently and effectively.
• Partner with operations, analytics, and quality assurance teams to identify process gaps and implement continuous improvements.
• Support updates to program manuals, SOPs, reporting, and governance as the program matures.

Budget, Reporting & Compliance

• Manage program budgets in partnership with finance and operations teams; track spend against forecasts and funding constraints.
• Deliver accurate, timely performance and compliance reporting to clients and internal leadership.
• Ensure adherence to regulatory, funding, and contractual requirements throughout program execution.

Stakeholder & Client Management

• Serve as a primary client facing lead for routine updates, issue resolution, and performance discussions.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with implementation partners, contractors, and vendors to ensure alignment and accountability.
• Address escalations related to customer experience, partner performance, or delivery risks.

Team Leadership & Coordination

• Provide clear direction, prioritization, and decision making support for program staff supporting steady state operations (e.g., program advisors, construction project managers, outreach leads).
• Reinforce role clarity, accountability, and collaboration across cross functional delivery teams.

What We Need You to Have (Minimum Qualifications):

• Bachelor’s degree in Energy, Engineering, Environmental Science, Business, or a related field (or applicants can substitute one year of related experience for one year of education)
• 8+ years experience in program management within energy efficiency, electrification, decarbonization, or related experience
• 2+ years experience managing operational budgets

What We’d Like You to Have (Preferred Qualifications):

• Deep understanding of policy drivers and regulatory priorities related to building decarbonization in California.
• Experience overseeing large, multi stakeholder, utility or government funded programs.
• Experience managing a California Energy Commission (CEC) and/or US Department of Energy (DOE) program.
• Strong consulting mindset with the ability to balance strategic leadership and operational execution.
• Experience managing vendors, contractors, and implementation partners at scale.
• Demonstrated success managing post launch program operations, performance, and delivery accountability.
• Strong experience working with community based organizations and serving residential or commercial customers undergoing complex energy upgrades.

Professional Skills You Will Use:

• Program and operational leadership
• Performance management and continuous improvement
• Stakeholder and client relationship management
• Budget oversight and compliance reporting
• Clear, confident communication across technical and non technical audiences
• Excellent stakeholder management, facilitation, and client facing communication skills.

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