Senior Program Manager, Software

Company: Berkeley Lights, Inc.
Location: Berkeley
Posted on: September 12, 2020

Job Description:

Berkeley Lights, Inc. is enabling precise cell by cell selection and manipulation to empower cell line development, antibody discovery and engineering, synthetic biology, and development of personalized cellular therapies. Founded in 2011, Berkeley Lights, Inc. is delivering breakthrough platforms and devices that fundamentally change the way biological processes are done. Our technology is revolutionizing how scientists and researchers study the interaction of cells and transform and accelerate biologics and cellular therapies.

As a Software Program Manager at Berkeley Lights, you will work with multi-disciplinary teams (including members from marketing, engineering, software, biology, chemistry, applications, and quality) with the goal of delivering breakthrough products, although you will be largely focused on software product development. Product scope and complexity will vary, but the development efforts will be fast-paced using unique, cutting edge technologies and approaches. You will work closely with the commercial team to ensure product/marketing requirements are sufficiently defined, then you will help design a cross functional team and oversee successful execution from concept to commercialization/delivery.

Responsibilities: Work with marketing and technical experts to scope the project in terms of requirements, resource needs, and timelines.

Work with functional managers (we use a matrix org structure) to resource and build a team to meet the specifications within the agreed upon timeline and budget. The team size may vary between 3 people and up to 12; in all cases the team will be multidisciplinary and awesome.

Oversee the development of products to ensure product development procedures are followed.

Maintain project plans, timelines, lead core team meetings and own specific project deliverables.

Communicate progress to executive staff on a regular basis.

Provide and/or oversee documentation of each project including the design history file for products, quality documentation as well as customer-facing training and informational materials.

Position Requirements: Software Engineering background with systems engineering experience.

Will be working directly with software team and you believe in the Agile methodology for software development. Must have experience working with Agile teams as a scrum master.

You have a strong appreciation for the complexities of integrating hardware and software system components and help teams make non-trivial tradeoffs.

Six-ish years relevant work experience working with interdisciplinary teams on complex instruments with life science applications, preferably as manager or program leader. You have brought several products from concept to market.

Ability to develop and manage timelines for multidisciplinary programs and meet or exceed expectations. Project management is a required skillset, but this role involves much more than Gantt charts. You are a leader that inspires teams to be greater than the sum of their parts.

Possess strong problem-solving skills, ideally in a structured format. Define risks or problems that warrant additional resources to complete programs on schedule. Work with team to use structured problem-solving techniques to remedy risks or problems quickly and remain on schedule. Deep down, you get a little excited when something breaks because you enjoy fixing things that appear unfixable.

Must be proficient with new product introduction (NPI) activities. This includes having the proper manufacturing, quality, process, test, and specification documentation released within the PLM, ERP, and CRM to facilitate the continued sustaining and support of your released products.

Communication, communication, communication. You will be communicating progress to internal management, including executives in the form of presentations, meetings, and reports. This doesn’t mean that you love meetings, rather you love efficient forms of communication which occasionally includes very short meetings.

Documentation: help to define, review and efficiently oversee key documentation for products, e.g. requirements, risk analysis, project plans, manuals, marketing collateral, etc.

Data driven attitude with strong data analysis skills. Sharing data in a format that is easy to interpret should come naturally to you. You often ask yourself, ‘what would Tufte do?’

Must be pro-active with strong prioritization, organization and project coordination skills.

Excel in small, motivated high-performance team with aggressive schedules. We like to move fast and remain agile – we will pivot if new data comes in suggesting a better path.

Work well across multiple disciplines and personalities. Teams will include mix of engineers and scientists, and you appreciate the differences in how scientists and engineers tackle problems and can use both approaches to maximize the results.

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is effective January 1, 2020. Please read our  California Consumer Privacy Act Disclosure Form  regarding the CCPA and Berkeley Lights’ required disclosures about the collection of personal information.

Keywords: Berkeley Lights, Inc., Berkeley , Senior Program Manager, Software, Other , Berkeley, California