Senior Technology Project Manager – Banking Systems

Luminate Bank is hiring a Senior Technology Project Manager to own bank technology projects from idea through go-live. The role leads vendor implementations, translates business needs into requirements and technical recommendations, and coordinates delivery across business, technology, engineering, and vendor teams.

Responsibilities:

• Lead bank technology projects end to end: intake, scoping, planning, execution, testing, go-live and post-launch review
• Build and maintain project plans with tasks, owners, dates and dependencies; assign work across business, technology and vendor teams
• Run kickoffs, working sessions and status meetings; publish clear weekly status, risks and decisions
• Hold stakeholders and vendors to their commitments; escalate early, with a recommended path forward, when dates or quality are at risk
• Manage several projects at once and keep them moving; no project stalls without a plan to unblock it
• Define scope, success criteria and out-of-scope items up front and get business sign-off before work begins
• Run a formal change-request process; assess the impact of new asks on time, cost and risk before accepting them
• Break large initiatives into phased deliveries that put value in users’ hands sooner
• Manage implementations, upgrades and conversions with Jack Henry and other core, digital banking, payments and fintech providers
• Review SOWs and project plans with Vendor Management; own the bank-side plan and hold vendors to theirs
• Coordinate testing (UAT), cutover planning, training and go-live readiness
• Lead discovery with business owners; document current- and future-state processes and requirements
• Write clear functional and technical requirements for vendors, and translate vendor responses back for the business
• Evaluate options (configure, buy, or build) and recommend solutions with trade-offs, cost and risk
• Work with the Engineering team on integrations, proprietary applications and AI agents that use vendor APIs; define requirements, acceptance criteria and priorities, while Engineering builds
• Organize business stakeholders: clarify roles, decision owners and deadlines for every project
• Follow and help improve our SDLC, documentation standards, change management, release planning, intake and capacity planning
• Keep project documentation, requirements and decisions current and audit-ready
• Identify and champion AI-enabled tools that speed up requirements, ticket writing and project management
• Provide hands-on coordination during high-priority incidents or critical release events affecting bank systems

Requirements:

• 5+ years of project management in banking or financial services technology, including leading third-party vendor implementations to go-live
• Hands-on experience with core banking systems
• Working knowledge of bank operations and products: deposits, lending, payments, digital banking, and related compliance (e.g., BSA/AML, Reg E, vendor risk)
• Proven record of setting scope, preventing scope creep and delivering on schedule
• Strong business analysis skills: discovery, process mapping, requirements and UAT
• Enough technical fluency to discuss APIs, integrations, data flows and system configuration with vendors and engineers
• Confident, proactive leader who assigns work, follows up and holds peers, business leaders and vendors accountable
• Clear written and verbal communication with executives, business users and technical teams
• Equivalent professional experience in banking technology or technology project leadership will be considered
• Jack Henry (SilverLake) and MANTL strongly preferred
• Experience with core conversions, digital banking or LOS implementations
• Experience with Agile delivery and tools such as Azure DevOps, SharePoint, Jira or GitHub Projects
• Exposure to data platforms, automation or AI agent use cases in banking
• Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Systems, Finance, or a related field preferred
• PMP, PMI-ACP, CBAP, or equivalent certification is a plus