Senior Program Manager, Embedded Government Team Lead

Precision Development (PxD); Mumbai; On-site; INR 3,000,000 - 6,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Precision Development (PxD) is seeking a Senior Program Manager to build and lead an embedded PMU in the Maharashtra government. You will oversee AI-enabled agriculture initiatives, evidence-based policy support, and digital deployment to improve smallholder farmer livelihoods across the state.

You will manage a cross-functional team and coordinate with policy staff, data scientists, and operations, with travel to Pune and district offices as needed.

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 management experience.
• Experience managing multi-stakeholder government and partner projects.
• Familiarity with AI and digital technologies applied to public sector programs.
• Strong organizational skills with attention to detail.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the government program's primary contact, building relationships across the Ministry and partners.
• Establish the PMU presence within government and set up operating rhythms and governance.
• Lead regular government reviews, manage funder relationships, and coordinate workshops.
• Translate priorities into a coordinated work plan and ensure timely delivery within budgets.
• Oversee grants, contracts, vendor relationships, and financial reporting.

Skills

Project management

Stakeholder management

Team leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Marathi language

Education

Master's degree or equivalent in a relevant field

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.

Required

What You'll Bring:

• 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.