Job Title: Project Manager

Job Location: Rochester, NY - Onsite, In-Person / In-Office

Salary: $90K to $120K

Company Overview

FrontEdge Inc. is a small organization operating primarily out of its offices in Rochester, New York. The company develops and maintains two core software products and related services tailored to the specific requirements of public K-12 school districts: RecruitFront, an applicant recruiting and tracking system, and SchoolFront, a comprehensive employee management platform.

Employment at FrontEdge Inc. includes access to a benefits package comprising health and dental insurance, a Health Savings Account (HSA), and a SIMPLE IRA plan with company matching. Staff members also receive paid time off and have access to flexible work schedules.

The company culture is defined by three primary values. Ownership and resourcefulness require employees to take initiative in problem-solving, work effectively within established constraints, and ensure all commitments are fulfilled. Operational excellence is maintained through reliable scheduling and high productivity during active working hours. Finally, relational integrity is practiced through proactive collaboration and the maintenance of professional respect for both colleagues and customers.

Job Overview

The Project Manager is responsible for the end-to-end lifecycle of organizational projects, encompassing software development, hardware logistics, vendor management, beta testing programs, and other scenarios that benefit from the skills of a project manager. This role ensures seamless communication between internal departments and external partners to deliver high-quality products on schedule and within budget.

This job will be performed on site at the FrontEdge Inc. office in Rochester, NY and does not offer remote or hybrid work options.

Core Responsibilities

General Project Management

Project Planning: Document project scope, timelines, and specific tasks required to reach objectives.
Resource Allocation: Identify personnel, budget, and tools to execute project phases.
Stakeholder Management: Identify all internal and external parties and manage expectations through consistent engagement.
Schedule Management: Create and maintain a project roadmap, track milestones, and ensure the team meets established deadlines.
Risk Mitigation: Identify potential obstacles, develop contingency plans, and manage issues as they arise.
Communication Management: Serve as the central point of contact to provide regular status updates and facilitate information flow.
Quality Control: Ensure that deliverables meet the specified requirements and organizational standards.
Change Management: Evaluate and process requests to alter the project scope, schedule, or budget to prevent "scope creep."
Project Closure: Finalize all activities, conduct post-project evaluations, and archive documentation for future reference.

Software Development Project Management

Sprint Management: Coordinate all aspects of the software development lifecycle to ensure tasks are prepared, organized, and completed efficiently.
Planning & Grooming: Facilitate “pre-grooming” sessions with Solution Architects, IT, and Product Owners to prioritize requests for features and fixes. Schedule and lead software deliverable planning meetings with development, QA, and analysts.
Daily Operations: Direct daily standup meetings, update work items in Azure DevOps, and manage "parking lot" items to ensure immediate follow-up.
Resource Coordination: Monitor developer task order, coordinate software builds and internal test environment installations and communicate environment status to stakeholders.
Project Cycle Reviews & Retrospectives: Facilitate recorded software demos and process retrospective meetings. Analyze metrics such as find/fix rates, estimation accuracy, and "noise" to implement process improvements.

Meeting Management

Meeting Strategy: Determine and maintain an appropriate meeting cadence to balance team alignment with productivity, canceling redundant sessions when necessary.
Logistics & Facilitation: Manage all meeting resources including agendas, materials, conferencing technology, and participant curation.
Accountability: Record comprehensive notes, assign action items with realistic deadlines, and track them through to completion.

Vendor & External Partner Management

Primary Liaison: Serve as the central point of contact between the organization and external vendor teams.
System Synchronization: Manage the integration of internal and vendor ticketing systems (e.g., Jira, ServiceNow) to maintain data consistency.
Contractual Oversight: Hold vendors accountable for deliverables according to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and escalate performance issues to leadership when necessary.
Dependency Mapping: Identify and resolve technical or procedural barriers between internal and external parties to maintain project velocity.

Beta Testing & Hardware Delivery

Beta Coordination: Facilitate communication between internal and external Beta stakeholders and participants and manage feedback channels.
Bug Triaging: Review and validate bug reports and filter duplicates.
Hardware Logistics: Manage the procurement, imaging, and global shipment of hardware assets, including customs compliance and physical installation coordination.

Communication & Reporting

Information Flow: Ensure consistent communication regarding software releases, issues, and operational changes between internal groups (Sales, QA, IT, etc.) and customers.
Reporting: Generate reports and tools from DevOps to inform stakeholders outside of the development and test teams on project status.
Release Readiness: Ensure non-development deliverables, such as Knowledge Base articles and release notes, are tracked and completed.

Candidate Requirements

Professional Experience

Required

Project Management: Experience managing the full project lifecycle, including initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and closing.
Software Development / IT Project Management: Experience managing projects comprised primarily of software development and/or IT teams.

Nice to Have

Agile Software Development: Experience facilitating aspects of the Agile software development lifecycle, such as managing sprint planning, daily standups, demos, and retrospectives.
User Acceptance Management: Experience coordinating beta testing programs, including tester recruitment, onboarding, and bug triaging.
Physical Product Delivery: Experience in hardware (or other physical product) delivery management, including procurement, and shipping logistics.
Vendor Coordination: Experience acting as a primary liaison with external vendors, including managing contractual obligations, SLAs, and cross-organizational dependencies.

Technical Skills