Sr. Program Manager

Sr. Program Manager

Istari is a digital engineering software company enabling our customers to turn the physical world into the digital to accomplish their specific mission or business objectives. Istari was founded with the vision of making open, scalable digital engineering ecosystems a reality where new technologies and systems are created digitally, free from the real-world constraints of costs and schedules. We are creating the world's best engineering model sharing platform, allowing our customers to simply and securely integrate their models across different engineering disciplines, organizations, and security levels. At Istari, we are passionate about our mission of creating the world's first open and scalable industrial metaverse. Whether our customers are designing prototypes, performing virtual testing, or training AI and autonomy for complex systems, we know that going digital will save them time, resources, and reduce their environmental impact. While we are a distributed team with most team-members working remotely, we place an emphasis on staying connected and collaborative, prioritizing in-person opportunities to build trust as a team. At Istari, we still believe that trust is best built in-person. To do this, we have an engineering headquarters in Cambridge, MA for focused technical development and several times per year we gather for an off-site that allows us to develop our professional skills and our team relationships.

At Istari, we live by our values, which include :

Purposeful Autonomy

We value letting people self-organize and self-motivate. Our flat structure and lack of meeting clutter are meant to empower individuals and teams to be proactive. Our autonomy is measured, goal-oriented, and results-driven not meandering. Clear objectives help us prioritize our time.

Smart Transparency

We believe in honest-but-kind communication, transparency, and open-door policies. We love learning about challenges and tackling them early, not hearing good or bad news late. We share work-in-progress across our team. Fast feedback keeps autonomy purposeful.

Continual Curiosity

At Istari, we love learning to do things ourselves. We ask, read, share, teach even watch YouTube videos to learn new skills to solve problems. When we make breakthroughs, we write them down.

Equal Opportunity

Istari is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, protected veteran status, or disability status.

Istari is seeking a skilled and driven Senior Program Manager to oversee the successful execution of up to four concurrent programs. These programs span technical and strategic domains and are critical to advancing our impact across federal and commercial sectors. The ideal candidate is a systems thinker with exceptional organizational skills and a strong sense of ownership over program outcomes. This role demands an ability to manage complexity across multiple threads while ensuring rigorous attention to cost, schedule, performance, and risk.

The selected Program Manager will report to senior leadership and be responsible for the day-to-day and long-term success of assigned programsfrom kickoff through final delivery. They will work closely with cross-functional teams including Engineering, Customer Success, Product, and Cybersecurity, and act as the connective tissue between execution and vision.

Key Responsibilities

• Program Management Excellence : Manage multiple high-priority programs simultaneously, each with its own set of deliverables, stakeholders, and strategic objectives. Lead program planning, schedule development, budget tracking, and risk management activities across all assigned programs. Coordinate with internal teams to ensure workstreams stay aligned and dependencies are managed. Establish clear reporting mechanisms for program status, risks, and key decisions. Develop and maintain integrated program plans and drive execution across all lifecycle stages.
• Stakeholder Engagement : Serve as the primary interface between Istari and external stakeholders, including government and commercial partners. Align program execution with contract requirements and customer expectations. Prepare and deliver high-quality briefings, status updates, and decision support materials to sponsors and senior leadership. Collaborate with Sales, Product, and the rest of the Customer Success team to ensure programs support long-term adoption, value delivery, and client satisfaction.
• Risk, Performance & Process Rigor : Identify, assess, and mitigate program risks through proactive planning and agile decision-making. Track and report on program performance against contractual and internal milestones. Support continuous improvement efforts across program workflows, applying lessons learned to future initiatives. Ensure quality of deliverables, timeliness, and resource alignment across programs.

Required Qualifications

Preferred Qualifications

$118,400 - $177,600 a year

BENEFITS

We offer highly competitive benefits, including :

Health and Family

Financial

Learning

Note - some benefits are not available to interns or contractors.

Thank you for your interest in Istari. Expect to hear back from us soon with next steps.