Senior Program Manager, Embedded Government Team Lead

Precision Development (PxD); Maharashtra; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Precision Development (PxD) is seeking a Senior Program Manager to lead an embedded PMU within the Maharashtra government’s agriculture initiatives. You will oversee AI-driven policy support, data analytics, and scalable digital services for smallholder farmers, coordinating across policy staff, data scientists, technologists, and researchers.

The role is Mumbai-based with travel to Pune and district offices.

Qualifications

• Master's degree (or equivalent) in public policy, economics, agriculture, development studies, engineering, management, data science, or related field.
• 7–10 years of progressively responsible program or project management experience.
• Experience managing large, multi-stakeholder projects involving government and partners.
• Familiarity with AI, digital technologies and applications.
• Strong project management and multitasking abilities.
• Excellent stakeholder management and leadership experience.
• Experience working with government programs at state or national level.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Preferred: agriculture, climate, digital public infrastructure, or international development.

Responsibilities

• Serve as primary government contact for the program, building relationships across the ministry and partners.
• Establish PMU presence in government, set up operating rhythms and processes.
• Lead regular government review meetings and manage funder relationships.
• Translate government priorities into a coordinated work plan and ensure timely delivery.
• Oversee grants, contracts, and partner management, ensuring donor compliance.
• Supervise and develop junior team members and recruitment processes.
• Support knowledge management, toolkits, and cross-country learning.

Skills

Stakeholder management

Team leadership

Program management

Multi-stakeholder coordination

Marathi proficiency

Education

Master's degree

Job description

Title: Senior Program Manager, Embedded Government Team Lead

Location: Mumbai, India

Position: Full-time

Date Posted: 18 August 2026

Application deadline: September 11, 2026, 5 pm IST (applications may be reviewed as they are submitted)

Role Overview

PxD is looking for a Senior Program Manager to build and lead an embedded Project Management Unit (PMU) within the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of Maharashtra. You will lead a portfolio of work spanning the use of AI for Agriculture, evidence-based policy support, and scaling of digital technologies to improve the livelihoods and resilience of smallholder farmers across Maharashtra. The PMU exists to provide demand-driven support to the Department, responding to its priorities on AI-enabled decision-making and inclusive service access for farmers, and will work across multiple parallel workstreams spanning technology deployment, data and analytics, and public-sector service delivery. You will build and lead a cross-functional team spanning policy staff, data scientists, technologists, program and research staff. This position is based in Mumbai, with regular engagement and travel to Pune and district-level offices.

About PxD

PxD is a rapidly scaling global non-profit that harnesses the power of technology, data science, and behavioral economics to provide targeted information to farmers in low- and middle-income countries. Providing the right information to the right people, in the right way and at the right time, increases incomes, protects the environment, and improves well-being. We are evidence-based: we test our interventions with randomized controlled trials to prove our impact and cost-effectiveness, and to simultaneously learn from and improve our service. Few interventions are as cost-effective as ours.

Responsibilities

Stakeholder Management

• Serve as the government's primary point of contact for the program, building working relationships across the Ministry and an extensive network of technical partners, implementing partners, and PxD teams.
• Establish the PMU's initial presence within government, securing working space, building early relationships with key decision-makers, and setting up the operating rhythms (reporting, steering committee cadence, team processes) that don't yet exist.
• Lead regular review meetings with key government counterparts; manage funder relationships.
• Facilitate government workshops and stakeholder consultations to further the PMU’s mandate.

Program Oversight, Delivery and Management

• Translate government priorities into a coordinated work plan, adjusting as the Department's needs shift.
• Own end-to-end implementation of projects, ensuring delivery against timelines, budgets, and quality standards.
• Monitor project progress, identify implementation risks, and proactively resolve bottlenecks.

Monitoring, Learning & Operations

• Oversee the program's evidence-generation agenda, including experiments designed to test whether specific interventions change outcomes before recommending the government scale them.
• Translate evidence findings into government-facing recommendations that a non-technical audience can act on
• Proactively oversee the PMUs own internal monitoring and reporting, continuously identifying areas for improvement.

Grants, Contracts & Partner Management

• Manage project contracts, grants, and sub-partner relationships.
• Monitor partner performance against agreed deliverables.
• Ensure contractual and donor compliance throughout project implementation.
• Coordinate with finance and operations teams on budgets, procurement, and financial reporting.

Team Leadership

• Supervise, mentor, and develop junior team members, including Manager, Associates and Technical staff.
• Foster a collaborative, high-performing team culture focused on learning and continuous improvement.
• Support recruitment, onboarding, and performance management of team members.

Knowledge Management & Organizational Support

• Support the development of operational toolkits, implementation guides, communication materials, and standard operating procedures.
• Contribute to PxD's institutional knowledge management and cross-country learning.
• Support organizational planning, operational improvements, and other strategic initiatives as required.

What You'll Bring

Required

• Master's degree (or equivalent experience) in Public Policy, Economics, Agriculture, Development Studies, Engineering, Management, Data Science, or another relevant field.
• 7–10 years of progressively responsible experience managing complex programs or projects.
• Demonstrated experience managing large, multi-stakeholder projects involving government agencies and external partners.
• Familiarity with AI, digital technologies and its applications
• Strong project management skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously.
• Strong stakeholder management and relationship-building abilities.
• Proven experience leading and mentoring teams.
• Experience working with state or national government programs.
• Excellent organizational skills and exceptional attention to detail.
• Preferred
• Experience in agriculture, climate, digital public infrastructure, technology, or international development.
• Familiarity with causal inference.
• Experience working with cross-functional technical, research, and operations teams.
• Comfort operating with significant ambiguity and limited existing infrastructure, having built or launched a new program or team from scratch
• Proficiency in Marathi.

In line with our values, we evaluate candidates on merit alone, without regard to gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religion, disability, caste, or any other characteristic protected under applicable law. We offer flexible working arrangements to support your wellbeing. Personal data provided is used for recruitment purposes only.