Director of Delivery Operations - Code for America

Code for America believes government can work for the people, by the people, in the new digital age, and that government at all levels can and should work well for all people. For more than a decade, we’ve worked to show that with the mindful use of technology, we can break down barriers, meet community needs, and find real solutions.

Code for America is looking for a talented Director of Delivery Operations who will establish and embed the delivery practices, standards, and governance mechanisms that build on existing best practices while enabling our teams to execute with consistency and confidence across a growing portfolio of government-facing projects — from kick-off through to successful project completion.

About the Role

Code for America works across a portfolio of complex, high-stakes projects — from products to technology-enabled advisory services — all aimed at helping millions of people access critical government benefits and services. As our portfolio grows and the demands on our government partners intensify, the consistency and discipline of how we deliver matters as much as what we deliver.

The Director of Delivery Operations will build and steward the systems, standards, and practices that make our project delivery excellent and repeatable. This is an internal-facing, enabling role: you won't manage individual projects directly, but you'll shape how every Safety Net advisory project runs — from the moment a partnership is handed off from cultivation through to project close. You'll work closely with Program Directors, Project Sponsors, and key project and discipline leaders to embed practical delivery practices into day-to-day work, and you'll partner with senior program leadership to ensure our operating model stays grounded in what actually works in the field.

This is a new role at Code for America with real strategic ownership — setting the priorities for how we invest in delivery infrastructure, making deliberate tradeoffs about where to standardize versus where to leave room for project-specific judgment, and bringing the best of delivery practice, AI-enabled tools and capabilities, and human-centered approaches to improving government services.

This role will report to the Senior Director of Safety Net and is expected to travel no more than 15% of the time.

Key Responsibilities

Delivery Standards & Practice Ownership

• Own and continuously improve Code for America's delivery methodology, including project management standards, tools, templates, playbooks, and governance frameworks.
• Set and drive strategic priorities for delivery infrastructure investment in alignment with senior leaders.
• Design and maintain protocols for the full project lifecycle: information handoffs from the Partnerships team at cultivation close, project kickoff facilitation and team onboarding, scope revision processes, and project close-out.
• Collaborate with product operations to leverage learnings and best practices for common processes across product and advisory work.
• Own and administer delivery tooling (e.g., Asana, Airtable), including configuration and project structuring across the portfolio.
• Maintain a living library of easy-to-use delivery resources, templates, how-to guides, and playbooks.
• Identify and integrate AI tools into delivery workflows where they can meaningfully improve consistency, efficiency, or quality of execution.

Coaching, Adoption & Change Management

• Provide day-to-day support to project leaders to ensure delivery standards are understood and consistently applied.
• Roll out training, tools, resources, and onboarding support to build project management capability across program teams.
• Drive adoption of delivery standards through intentional change management.
• Anticipate resistance to new delivery practices before it surfaces and work to address it proactively.
• Design and facilitate feedback loops — through quality assurance reviews, retrospectives, and structured check-ins — that surface what's working and what needs to evolve.
• Identify patterns across projects (recurring risks, scope issues, handoff breakdowns) and translate them into updated guidance and coaching.

Project Support & Scope Management

• Ensure strong communication and feedback loops with project teams to track delivery effectiveness, surface emerging risks, and provide hands-on support.
• Support scope revision processes from a project management perspective, helping teams manage and reset expectations in a structured way.
• Partner with the Partnerships team to ensure smooth handoffs from cultivation to delivery.

Governance & Portfolio Visibility

• Continually assess effectiveness and efficiency of existing and new governance mechanisms, including regular project check-ins, reporting, and communication processes.
• Track adoption of delivery standards across projects and flag gaps proactively.
• Support Program Directors in preparing for project reviews and escalations with consistent, well-structured information.
• Partner with senior program leadership to ensure delivery operations stay aligned with evolving program priorities and organizational strategy.

Role Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in project management, delivery operations, or a PMO function, ideally within digital services, consulting, government, or civic technology.
• Demonstrated experience designing and implementing delivery frameworks, standards, or playbooks.
• Demonstrated ability to set priorities across a delivery domain — deciding where to invest in standardization, where to leave flexibility, and communicating tradeoffs to senior stakeholders.
• Strong coaching and change management skills, with a track record of driving adoption of new practices across teams.
• Ability to learn fast, act with conviction, and stay open to feedback.
• Experience facilitating project kickoffs and structuring handoff processes between teams or functions.
• Deep familiarity with project and delivery management tools (e.g., Asana, Airtable, Jira, Smartsheet).
• Experience identifying and integrating AI tools into delivery or project management workflows.
• Experience supporting a portfolio of concurrent projects with the ability to spot systemic delivery risks.
• Comfort working in a highly collaborative, cross-functional environment where influence matters more than authority.
• Deep commitment to Code for America's mission.

Bonus Qualifications

• Experience working in civic tech, government services, or public sector delivery contexts.
• Familiarity with human-centered design or agile delivery methodologies as practiced in digital government work.
• Experience building delivery operations functions from scratch in a growing or scaling organization.
• Background working with or alongside government partners (state agencies, federal programs).
• Experience developing training curricula or facilitating communities of practice around delivery or project management.

Salary & Benefits

• Target Salary Range: $121,869 to $149,188 annually (targeting the midpoint of the 2nd quartile).
• Remote Setup: Laptop provided, plus a one-time $700 remote environment setup allowance ($200 stipend in first paycheck + up to $500 reimbursement).
• Connectivity Allowance: $50 per month cell phone and/or internet reimbursement.
• Professional Development: $500 annual stipend towards professional development (up to $500 rollover permitted).