Context

We are Sustaain, a data-for-sustainability startup building a sustainability intelligence platform for complex supply chains such as coffee and cocoa, with an initial focus on data management for European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) compliance and risk management.

Over the next 6 months, we are shipping production-grade workflows that combine: portal UX + APIs, traceability + geospatial services, auditability, and data ingestion/automation. We deliver these capabilities with demanding enterprise stakeholders and high uncertainty (reuse vs rebuild, evolving requirements, multiple systems to integrate).

Role Overview

We are looking for a Program Manager / PMO to make delivery predictable and high-trust: structure the work, drive decisions, reduce ambiguity, and ensure we ship in increments that work in real operations.

This is not a “status reporting” role. You own outcomes: scope clarity, delivery cadence, stakeholder alignment, and production readiness.

You will report to founders / delivery leadership and work closely with Product, Engineering, and Data teams.

Responsibilities

• Own day-to-day program execution across 1–2 large initiatives (and a few smaller ones): scope, sequencing, dependencies, risks, and decision-making.
• Run discovery and alignment with stakeholders (Ops, Compliance, IT, Sustainability): document the “as-is”, surface constraints, and turn ambiguity into a plan.
• Drive functional definition: workflows, personas, roles/permissions, boundaries between systems, and clear acceptance criteria.
• Coordinate technical design alignment with tech leads: target architecture, integration patterns (API/file/hybrid), non-functional requirements (security, auditability, performance), and data ownership.
• Build and maintain an execution backbone: backlog, milestones, release plan, sprint goals, definition of done, and success metrics.
• Set up and run governance: weekly steering, decision logs, change control, and crisp progress reporting (what shipped, what’s blocked, what decisions are needed).
• Coordinate testing and rollout: UAT plan, validation evidence, production readiness, runbooks, go-live/rollback, and early hypercare.
• Support commercial execution when needed: scope new requests, help structure SOW inputs, and ensure commitments match delivery reality.

Required Skills & Experience

• Strong PMO / program management fundamentals and a track record of shipping complex projects with multiple stakeholders.
• Comfort with technical topics (without needing to be an engineer): you understand systems, data flows, constraints, and can translate between business and technical teams.
• Excellent structure and prioritisation: you can break down problems, handle trade-offs, and keep focus under uncertainty.