Program Manager, ISV Program Development - GM Defense

Job Description

Hybrid: This role is categorized as hybrid . This means the successful candidate is expected to report to Global Technical Center in Warren, Michigan three times per week, at minimum, or other frequency dictated by the business with periodic travel to Concord, NC and customer locations.

About GM Defense:

GM Defense is driving the future of military mobility by leveraging the best-in-class capabilities of General Motors for unmatched innovation, proven performance and breakthrough life-cycle economics! We deliver reliable, affordable, and innovative products across a full spectrum of capabilities – integrated vehicles, power and propulsion, autonomy, mobility, and security!

GM Defense is seeking a highly motivated, dynamic individual looking for an opportunity that will allow them to showcase their talents and have an impact in a strategic growth area. Our ideal candidate thrives in ambiguity and demonstrates problem-solving leadership with limited oversight!

The Role

The Program Manager – Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) Process Excellence, Automation, and Program Development owns the management system that enables consistent, efficient, and data-driven execution across the ISV portfolio. This role turns complex program requirements into standardized processes, clearly defined work products, repeatable governance, and practical digital tools that improve execution across contracts, engineering, manufacturing, sustainment, finance, and customer engagement.

The position leads the full lifecycle of ISV process and work-product development: identifying needs and pain points; defining requirements and standard methods; creating templates, playbooks, workflows, dashboards, and other reusable products; piloting and validating solutions; driving adoption; and measuring sustained performance. The role is also responsible for identifying and implementing automation and AI-enabled solutions that reduce manual effort, improve data quality, accelerate analysis, strengthen decision support, and enable more effective product-development and program-execution practices.

Core responsibilities include standardizing program-management processes; integrating contract deliverables and Integrated Master Schedules (IMS); leading cost-account structure creation and maintenance; developing analytical studies and AI-enabled decision-support products; and ensuring that approved methods and tools are embedded into daily execution. The Program Manager also provides direct supervisory leadership to 2–3 Assistant Program Managers, setting priorities, developing team capability, and maintaining consistent execution across assigned resources.

What You'll Do

Portfolio Integration and Baseline Management

• Serve as the integration lead across ISV contracts, variants, work directives, and program-management workstreams.

• Maintain a consolidated view of technical, schedule, financial, and contractual baselines, including the relationships and trade-offs among them.

• Assess the effect of scope, configuration, schedule, resource, and funding changes on the broader ISV portfolio.

• Translate contractual requirements into executable plans in partnership with Contracts, Finance, Engineering, Manufacturing, Integrated Product Support, Quality, Supply Chain, and Business Development.

• Identify cross-functional dependencies, constraints, and decision points early enough to protect program commitments.

Process Excellence, Work-Product Standardization, and Governance

• Define, document, standardize, and maintain end-to-end operating processes for core ISV program-management activities, including contract-change flow, CDRL development and review, IMS updates, risk and issue management, cost-account setup, decision forums, and customer reviews.

• Own the development and lifecycle management of reusable work products, including SOPs, process maps, RACI charts, templates, checklists, dashboards, decision briefs, study charters, reporting packs, and training materials.

• Establish clear quality standards, entry and exit criteria, ownership models, version control, and approval paths for critical ISV work products.

• Convert lessons learned and recurring execution issues into improved standards, updated tools, and practical guidance that teams can apply consistently.

• Monitor adoption, compliance, cycle time, quality, and rework; identify gaps and bottlenecks; and lead corrective actions through closure.

• Establish a sustainable governance cadence to review, approve, communicate, and continuously improve processes and work products as contracts, tools, organizational responsibilities, and customer expectations evolve.

Automation, AI Enablement, and Product Development

• Systematically identify high-friction, manual, repetitive, data-intensive, or error-prone activities in ISV program execution and product-development workflows.

• Evaluate opportunities to simplify, standardize, automate, or augment work using SharePoint, Power Platform, dashboards, templates, macros, scripts, workflow tools, generative AI, machine learning, and other appropriate technologies.

• Lead the development and implementation of AI-based product-development and program-execution solutions, such as requirements analysis, knowledge retrieval, engineering-content comparison, trade-study support, schedule and risk analysis, configuration-change impact assessment, predictive insights, and automated reporting.

• Define use cases, data requirements, controls, human-in-the-loop reviews, test cases, acceptance criteria, and responsible-use practices for automation and AI solutions.

• Partner with Engineering, Manufacturing, IPS, Quality, Supply Chain, Finance, IT, data teams, and tool owners to prototype, validate, deploy, and sustain solutions.

• Translate user needs into practical product requirements, workflow designs, minimum viable products, adoption plans, training materials, and support processes.

• Establish baseline and post-implementation measures for cycle time, error rate, touch time, quality, adoption, decision speed, and realized benefits.

• Build a prioritized automation and AI opportunity backlog, manage delivery roadmaps, and ensure solutions become standardized work rather than isolated pilots.

Cost-Account Structure and Financial Integration

• Lead the creation and maintenance of cost-account structures for ISV integration activities in close collaboration with Program Finance, Controllership, and Contracts.

• Facilitate working sessions to structure new work in accordance with MIL-STD-881 and applicable internal GPN/WBS standards.

• Ensure traceability among contract scope, work breakdown structures, cost accounts, charging structures, authorized personnel, and reporting requirements.

• Prepare and submit GPN/WBS requests, track approvals, resolve issues, and maintain current reference tools such as ISV GPN guides, PEG/WBS masters, and project lists.

• Coordinate with Finance to ensure structures support accurate reporting, invoicing, forecasting, cost control, and audit readiness.

• Identify and correct misalignment between authorized work, charge lines, organizational ownership, and program baselines.

Contract Deliverables, CDRLs, and Integrated Master Schedules

• Own the contract-deliverables integration plan and ensure CDRLs, technical products, and program artifacts are connected to the appropriate IMS tasks.

• Confirm that deliverables are properly scoped, resourced, sequenced, reviewed, and aligned to customer and internal milestones.

• Oversee CDRL development, internal review, approval, status tracking, and submission while improving visibility through workflow automation where practical.

• Establish performance reporting for deliverables, including on-time, late, at-risk, aging, and recovery-plan status.

• Partner with the IMS lead to maintain a high-quality, resource-informed schedule that reflects current scope, app