Program Manager, Integrated Planning, GEMS, NA Startup

Amazon is seeking a Program Manager to join the Startup Integrated Planning team within the Global Engineering, Materials, & Sustainability (GEMS) organization. This team owns the integrated planning function for North America's infrastructure project portfolio, connecting cross-functional workstreams into unified, reliable schedules that guide execution across large-scale new build and expansion/retrofit projects.

This Program Manager will contribute to the strategic evolution of the integrated planning program, helping mature planning as a discipline. The role oversees a team of contracted project planners, setting the bar for quality and ensuring consistent delivery, while balancing program-level strategy, cross-functional influence, and scaling mechanisms.

This is a rapidly scaling environment where processes exist but are still maturing. Success requires strategic thinking, comfort navigating ambiguity, and the judgment to refine and extend existing frameworks. A strong background in integrated scheduling is critical for providing effective program management at this scale.

This role requires up to 50% travel in the US and Canada and availability to work from a corporate office when not traveling. Candidates should either live near or be willing to relocate within a reasonable commuting distance of the office. Relocation assistance may be provided.

Key job responsibilities Program Strategy & Contracted Planner Oversight

• Shape and advance the workforce and vendor strategy for contracted planners, including capacity modeling, skill-mix optimization, and procurement negotiations that scale with portfolio growth.
• Oversee contracted project planners: set expectations, provide training on planning standards, review deliverable quality, and support escalations.
• Assign and rebalance planners across projects based on priority, complexity, and workload.
• Track project budgets, manage invoicing, and provide funding inputs for planning resources.

Planning Quality, Standards, & Governance

• Refine and enforce quality standards for integrated project schedules, ensuring all plans connect discipline timelines, dependencies, and handovers into a single source of truth.
• Contribute to the planning maturity model and roadmap, setting progressive quality targets that evolve as the program scales.
• Design and implement governance mechanisms that validate schedule quality at scale, removing the need for manual review.
• Ensure weekly planning status reports are accurate, complete, and distributed on time to stakeholders.
• Track planning health via KPI dashboards measuring schedule integrity, milestone adherence, plan variance, and delivery date accuracy.

Standardization & Continuous Improvement

• Develop, maintain, and enforce Standard Operating Procedures for all planning activities.
• Develop and improve planning tools, templates, and AI-driven automations to boost planner productivity and eliminate manual workflows.
• Identify and lead initiatives that advance planning maturity, including automation, tooling, and capability building.
• Capture lessons learned from completed projects and convert them into repeatable, scalable best practices.

Risk Management & Reporting

• Identify and mitigate program-level planning risks; own escalation paths and drive issues to resolution.
• Ensure planners identify cross-functional dependencies and surface risks early, before they become execution problems.
• Develop and refine risk and reporting frameworks that give leadership the signal needed to make portfolio-level decisions
• Provide clear, data-driven status reporting to senior leadership on portfolio-wide planning performance.

Program-Level Cross-Functional Partnership

• Build and maintain program-level relationships with key partner functions (design, operations, construction, launch, IT, engineering) to drive planning adoption and standardization.
• Serve as the planning liaison with partner functions, championing integrated scheduling practices and ensuring planning inputs are prioritized.
• Drive continuous improvement of integrated planning by gathering feedback from partner functions and refining how planning intersects with their workflows.
• Represent the Integrated Planning program in global and cross-functional forums, aligning planning standards and resolving systemic gaps across disciplines.
• 3+ years of program or project management experience
• 3+ years of defining and implementing process improvement initiatives using data and metrics experience
• Knowledge of Excel (Pivot Tables, VLookUps) at an advanced level and SQL
• Experience using data and metrics to determine and drive improvements
• Experience working cross functionally with tech and non-tech teams
• Bachelor's degree
• Experience in stakeholder management, dealing with multiple stakeholders at varied levels of the organization
• 3+ years of integrated scheduling experience including use of MS Project, Primavera P6, or equivalent tool
• Experience applying AI tools and automation to scale program operations and drive measurable efficiency improvements.
• Experience handling ambiguous or undefined challenges through strong problem solving abilities