Project Manager, Incident Response

Abacus is seeking an Incident Response Project Manager dedicated to client-facing projects within their Incident Response team. This role involves managing multiple technical projects from inception to completion, ensuring successful project deliverables and client satisfaction.

Responsibilities:

• Coordinates multiple, external technical projects from inception to completion:
• Follows established core processes, project templates, and methodologies
• Takes a lead in Professional Services stand-ups & meetings
• Collaborates on project planning, project design, preparation of deliverables, timelining, and contingency planning
• Understands SOW requirements and converts them into realistic, executable project plans
• Manages the project resources to effectively execute on-time deliverables
• Tracks and manages the project budget from the outset through successful completion
• Tracks and oversees T&M project scope and related time entries, confirming their validity
• Employs creative measures to keep project scope contained
• Ensures QA standards are being met before project delivery
• Outlines goals, strategy, and execution with Entara’s engineers:
• Assists in the initial triage and establishment of access for project kick-off
• Drives team’s development of project proposals and scope documentation
• Leverages conflict management techniques to address disagreements
• Assigns and aligns necessary resources, understanding resource requirements and capacity (perm or contracted) on projects, maximizing available resources and leveraging each engineer’s skill set effectively
• Follows up with engineers on a weekly, daily, or (when necessary) hourly basis to understand the progress of their assigned work and to identify potential roadblocks
• Monitors and summarizes progress of project(s) to stakeholders:
• Entara Leadership
• Finance
• Client Contacts and IR Partners
• Sets and conducts status meetings with client contacts, keeping them informed of progress and setting proper expectations
• Leads the creation of PowerPoint presentations and project reports as required for large projects
• Participates in incident response on-call rotation for incoming IR projects
• Identifies and understands when it is necessary to escalate issues to higher-level resources
• Addresses billing disputes, overruns, and customer service issues with meaningful resolutions, looping in additional Entara resources as necessary
• Conducts post-mortems to outline lessons learned and improve internal processes
• Becomes an active part of project teams solving technical or business roadblocks until a resolution is reached and the outcome is personally verified
• Perseveres in making sound judgment calls when lacking one or more desired resources or data points
• Challenges technical or business requirements ensuring that we deliver the right solution, at the right price, at the right time
• Leverages and employs an understanding of intermediate to advanced systems configuration, management, and maintenance in areas including the following (this is a sample but not exhaustive listing of work areas and project tasks assigned to our IR-focused engineers):
• Microsoft-related technologies: Windows Server, Exchange, SQL Server, SharePoint, Active Directory, GPO, LAPS, SCCM, MDT, Intune, 0365, Azure etc
• Virtualization technologies: VMware and Microsoft Hyper V
• Restore and reimage virtual servers from images and various backup solutions
• Restore and rebuild ESX and Hyper-V hosts, domain controller, etc
• Mount ISOs to virtual systems
• Upload virtual templates to any hypervisor
• Out of Band access to Physical systems
• Leverage console access such as ILO and iDrac to establish remote connection to offline physical systems
• Backup and disaster recovery solutions for both desktops and servers
• Access solutions: VPN, Remote Desktop, Citrix, etc
• Diagnostic tools; review event logs, Syslogs, monitoring data, and memory dumps to troubleshoot issues
• Security-enhancing solutions for systems and applications (including MFA and endpoint protection)
• Maintains billable utilization targets
• Ensures all mandatory reports are generated and updated daily
• Meets or exceeds deadlines for all assigned projects
• Keeps projects profitable while not skimping on quality
• Leverages cost variance and schedule variance formulas to measure project success
• Contributes to the team’s attainment of high customer satisfaction scores on project delivery
• Records complete change details, time worked entries, and work notes in ServiceNow in real-time
• Identifies opportunities for process improvement
• Follows Entara’s project process to execute project deliverables: configure, test, implement, refine, document, monitor, and transition to appropriate stakeholders
• Follows Entara’s Change Management Process to perform approved changes in client environments
• Communicates internally and (as directed) externally to provide timely information regarding project status, promised follow-ups, and requested feedback on a detailed and professional basis

Requirements:

• Four-year degree in a relevant field
• PMP certification (working towards or already obtained)
• At least 5 years of experience delivering IT waterfall projects
• Experience with systems and virtualization in enterprise infrastructures
• Superb writing skills and highly refined verbal communication skills
• Ability to convey energy, confidence, and genuine interest over a call
• Professionalism and trustworthiness in person
• Clear, effective, and persuasive communication in any medium
• Adaptable working hours beyond traditional '9-to-5'
• Willingness to travel to client sites when needed
• Dedicated, private space for a home office with a private internet connection of at least 50MBPS bandwidth