Program Manager - Amazon Connect Banking Program

About Persistent Systems

Persistent Systems is a leader in AI-driven digital engineering and enterprise modernization, partnering with top Fortune 50 companies and leading banks in the US and India. With over 27,500 employees worldwide, Persistent combines deep technical knowledge and industry expertise to deliver innovative solutions, boasting $1.65 billion revenue in FY26 and recognized globally for growth and leadership.

Position Overview

• Title: Program Manager
• Location: Sydney, Australia
• Experience: 12 to 15 years
• Employment Type: Full-Time

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the end-to-end governance and delivery of an Amazon Connect program for a banking client.
• Manage program planning, milestone tracking, risk and issue management, financial oversight, and executive reporting.
• Facilitate collaboration between customer executives, business teams, architects, security, operations, and offshore units.
• Conduct customer workshops, steering committee meetings, and governance reviews onsite.
• Oversee multiple workstreams such as Amazon Connect setup, IVR/contact flows, integrations, testing, release readiness, migration, and post-go-live support.
• Ensure expectations alignment between onsite stakeholders and offshore delivery teams.
• Monitor scope, dependencies, changes, risks, and issue resolution throughout program lifecycle.
• Review sprint progress, backlog, resource utilization, and quality assurance activities.
• Facilitate decisions involving technology, security, infrastructure, and business stakeholders.
• Ensure compliance with banking-grade governance standards in change management and operational readiness.
• Support commercial governance including effort tracking, forecasting, invoicing, and staffing coordination.
• Prepare comprehensive customer status reports, executive summaries, governance presentations, minutes of meetings, and action trackers.

Mandatory Experience and Skills

• Total IT delivery or program management experience of 12 to 15 years.
• At least 5 years managing cloud, contact center, customer experience, digital transformation, infrastructure, or enterprise application programs.
• Direct experience managing customer-facing onsite programs in banking, financial services, insurance, telecom, or enterprise domains.
• Strong expertise with Amazon Connect, contact center modernization, IVR systems, telephony, cloud integrations, or managed services transition.
• Proven ability to lead distributed onsite and offshore teams across various functions including architecture, development, QA, DevOps, security, and operations.
• Hands-on experience with Agile, hybrid Agile, and waterfall methodology governance.
• Competence in executive reporting, steering committee governance, risk/issue/dependency (RAID) management, and financial tracking.

Tools and Certifications

• Familiarity with JIRA, Confluence, MS Project, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, SharePoint, RAID tracking and reporting tools.
• Preferred certifications: PMP, PRINCE2, PgMP, Certified Scrum Master, SAFe Agilist, AWS Cloud Practitioner or Solutions Architect, ITIL Foundation.

Preferred Skills

• Experience with other contact center platforms like Genesys, Five9, NICE, Avaya, or cloud contact center transformations.
• Knowledge of AWS services, API and identity/security integration, and service management.
• Background in banking contact center operations, digital channels, service desk modernization, network security, virtualization, and enterprise architecture consulting.
• Experience with managed services transition, operational handover, support readiness, and SLA governance.

Soft Skills

• Exceptional executive communication and customer engagement capabilities.
• Ability to manage senior stakeholders and geographically diverse teams effectively.
• Strong negotiation, facilitation, and conflict resolution skills.
• Ownership-driven with methodical follow-through and closure focus.
• Capacity to work effectively under pressure during go-live, escalations, and hypercare phases.

Success Metrics

• Timely delivery of milestones as per project plans.
• Proactive risk, issue, and dependency management.
• Maintained customer governance cadence with high-quality reporting.
• Achieved sprint and release readiness minimizing delivery surprises.
• Seamless coordination between onsite and offshore teams.
• Successful go-live and hypercare transition with clear operational handover.

Employee Benefits

• Competitive salary and comprehensive benefits package.
• Culture that emphasizes talent growth with quarterly promotions and sponsored higher education/certifications.
• Exposure to innovative technologies.
• Employee engagement activities including project celebrations, flexible working hours, and long-service awards.
• Annual medical check-ups.
• Insurance coverage encompassing group term life, personal accident, and hospitalization for self, spouse, children, and parents.

Diversity & Inclusion

Persistent is committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace welcoming candidates of all backgrounds, including those with disabilities. The organization supports flexible and hybrid work arrangements, provides accessibility accommodations, and encourages candidates to communicate any specific needs.