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Emerge Career · 5 months ago

Senior Program Manager, New Initiatives

New York City

Full-time

Hybrid

Senior Level

$70K/yr - $115K/yr

5+ years exp

Emerge Career is focused on breaking the cycle of poverty and incarceration through an integrated workforce development platform. The Senior Program Manager, New Initiatives will be responsible for discovering new vocations, architecting go-to-market strategies, and ensuring successful training and job placement for participants.

CommunitiesHuman ResourcesTraining

Responsibilities

Discover & validate new vocations (0→1). Use labor-market data, wage trends, and licensing requirements to pick the right trades—and prove there’s real demand before we invest

Architect the go-to-market playbook. Map every step from first idea to statewide rollout: market sizing, regulatory checks, curriculum needs, training partnerships, contract negotiations, and kill-switch criteria

Forge the ecosystem. Secure hiring commitments from employers, MOUs with training schools, and buy-in from credentialing bodies so each program launches with jobs waiting at the finish line

Design the pilot experience. Partner with Ops to recruit a “lighthouse” cohort, screen for fit, and guide students through training, certification, and job placement—owning outcomes end-to-end

Run fast experiments. Stand up scrappy processes, build automations, and lightweight tooling (Retool, Customer.io, Zapier) to test assumptions and shrink time-to-insight

Iterate relentlessly. Capture data on enrollment funnel, completion, placement, and employer satisfaction; diagnose root causes and ship fixes weekly

Document the blueprint. Translate wins, failures, SOPs, and templates into a repeatable playbook the wider team can use to spin up the next vocation without you

Enable scale. Train hand-off owners, set up dashboards, and integrate workflows into our core platform so New Initiative #1 becomes a steady state program—and you can jump to the next one

Act like a founder. Own strategy, ops, and relationship-building; chase blockers until they move; and keep the bar high on speed, quality, and student impact

Qualification

Workflow automationEarly-stage startup experienceWorking with underserved populationsData analysisBuilding internal dashboardsEmpathyCuriosityProblem-solvingCommunicationAdaptability

Required

Willing to relocate and work in-person in New York City

Five or more years of professional work experience

Demonstrated experience working with underserved populations

Demonstrated experience in early-stage startups. You were most likely a founding team member of at least one startup when they had less than 10 people

Demonstrated experience with workflow automation tooling

Deeply curious and highly attuned to human behavior and emotion

Preferred

Involved with or impacted by the criminal justice system

Benefits

Goal-based bonus structure

Meaningful equity

Paid Work Trial (2-5 days). You’ll come onsite to work on a real project, with access to internal tools and team collaboration. You’ll be paid $500 per day. All travel expenses will be covered.