[Hiring] LEAD TECHNICAL PROJECT MANAGER @Lumen

Role Description

Lumen's Customer Financial Services team builds and runs the applications and processes behind billing, payments, collections, credit, and other customer financial operations. The Strategic Transformation PMO within CFS drives the organization's most important initiatives, including major ERP programs on SAP BRIM and SAP S/4HANA Finance, platform modernization, and new AI-powered workflows built with leading technology partners.

We're looking for a Senior Project Manager to lead strategic initiatives and other key projects from planning through delivery. Many of our current initiatives involve ERP systems, so exposure to SAP or other ERP projects is valuable, and the role may expand to support other areas of CFS over time. You'll own project plans, timelines, and schedules; manage work in Jira; act as a product manager for your initiatives; run Agile ceremonies and PI planning; and give clear readouts to management. You'll work closely with IT teams in India and the United States, along with finance, business, and other cross-functional teams, and you'll help strengthen the PMO team's practices and tools.

Main Responsibilities

• Project and Program Management
  • Plan, lead, and deliver strategic transformation initiatives and other CFS projects from initiation through closure, on time, within scope, and within budget.
  • Build and maintain detailed project plans, timelines, schedules, milestones, and resource plans.
  • Track progress, dependencies, risks, issues, and decisions (RAID), and drive resolution and escalation as needed.
  • Manage scope and change requests, keeping stakeholders aligned on priorities and trade-offs.
  • Work with IT teams in India and the US, and with finance, business, operations, and vendor teams, to coordinate cross-functional work and keep it moving.
  • Support budget tracking, capacity planning, and resource forecasting for assigned initiatives.
• ERP Initiatives
  • Manage ERP initiatives, including projects on SAP BRIM and SAP S/4HANA Finance, such as implementations, enhancements, upgrades, and rollouts.
  • Manage the ERP project lifecycle, including requirements, design, build, testing, user acceptance testing, data migration, cutover, go-live, and hypercare.
  • Coordinate SAP functional and technical teams, system integrators, and vendors to keep scope, quality, and timelines on track.
  • Manage integrations and dependencies between ERP and surrounding systems, including .NET and Azure applications, billing platforms, and downstream finance and reporting systems.
  • Plan and track release and environment schedules in coordination with SAP and IT technical teams.
  • Partner with finance, billing, and order-to-cash business owners to make sure ERP solutions support business processes, financial controls, and audit requirements.
  • Support organizational change management, training, and business readiness for ERP deployments.
• Agile Delivery and Jira Management
  • Own and manage Jira for assigned initiatives, including boards, epics, stories, workflows, filters, dashboards, and reports.
  • Lead backlog grooming and refinement sessions, making sure stories are well written, sized, prioritized, and have clear acceptance criteria.
  • Facilitate Scrum ceremonies, including daily stand-ups, sprint planning, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.
  • Plan, prepare for, and facilitate PI (Program Increment) planning sessions, including managing objectives, dependencies, and risks across teams.
  • Track and report Agile metrics such as velocity, burndown/burnup, predictability, and cycle time, and use them to improve delivery.
• Product Management
  • Act as product manager or product owner for assigned initiatives: define the vision, goals, and roadmap with business stakeholders.
  • Gather and translate business requirements into epics, features, and user stories.
  • Prioritize the backlog based on business value, risk, and dependencies, and make sure delivered work meets business needs.
  • Define success measures and track outcomes after delivery.
• Reporting and Stakeholder Communication
  • Prepare and present clear status reports, dashboards, and executive readouts to CFS management and senior leadership.
  • Communicate progress, risks, and decisions proactively to stakeholders in India and the US.
• PMO Support
  • Support the Senior Manager of PMO with portfolio reporting, governance, and planning activities.
  • Help define, improve, and standardize PMO processes, templates, Jira standards, and best practices.
  • Mentor and support other project managers and team members on project management and Agile practices.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related field; a Master's degree or MBA is a plus.
• Minimum 8 years of professional experience, including at least 5 years managing IT projects or programs.
• Proven track record of delivering complex, cross-functional projects with distributed teams across time zones.
• Exposure to managing ERP projects, such as SAP or other ERP platforms.
• Experience working with IT and cross-functional teams, including finance and business partners.
• Comfortable with both Agile and waterfall delivery, and adapting the approach to the project.
• Strong hands-on experience managing Jira: boards, workflows, epics and stories, JQL filters, dashboards, and reporting. Confluence experience is a plus.
• Solid experience with Agile/Scrum, including facilitating ceremonies and backlog grooming.
• Experience with scaled Agile frameworks such as SAFe, including facilitating or taking part in PI planning.
• Experience in a product manager or product owner role, including writing user stories and managing a backlog.
• Strong skills in planning, scheduling, risk management, and dependency management.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to create and present concise executive readouts.
• Strong stakeholder management skills and the ability to influence without direct authority.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and project scheduling tools such as MS Project or Smartsheet.
• Willingness to work regular overlapping hours with US-based teams.

Preferred Skills

• Certifications: PMP, PMI-ACP, PRINCE2, CSM, PSM, CSPO, or SAFe certifications (SAFe Agilist, POPM, RTE, or SPC).
• Experience managing projects on SAP BRIM (Convergent Mediation, Convergent Invoicing) or SAP S/4HANA Finance (FI/CO, FI-CA).
• Understanding of order-to-cash, billing, invoicing, and financial accounting processes.
• Familiarity with SAP Activate or other ERP project methodologies, and experience managing system integrators or ERP vendors.
• SAP certifications, such as SAP Activate Project Manager.
• Experience in a PMO setting, including portfolio governance and reporting.
• Experience leading other transformation programs, such as application modernization, cloud migration, or process automation.
• Familiarity with software development on .NET and Microsoft Azure, or a technical background in software engineering.
• Exposure to AI/ML initiatives or data platforms, such as Microsoft AI services or Palantir Foundry/AIP.
• Telecom industry experience, especially subscription or usage-based billing, collections, and revenue management.