Development Project Manager

Elk Marketing; United States; Remote; USD 76,000 - 103,000; Full time

Job summary

elk Marketing is seeking a Development Project Manager to own Shopify development projects from initial client conversations through launch. You’ll align with a team of 10 developers, designers, and data contractors, translating business needs into clear scopes, actionable plans, and high-quality deliverables.

This role requires direct client interaction, decision-making without a predefined playbook, and ownership of timelines, quality, and delivery across multiple projects.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience leading enterprise Shopify projects and ecosystems.
• Experience managing developers and direct client communication.
• Strong skills in scoping, planning and delivering complex Shopify projects.

Responsibilities

• Own Shopify development projects from intake to launch and delivery.
• Define project scopes and estimates from templates and best practices.
• Lead the design/development teams to meet client requirements and timelines.
• Perform QA on deliverables and manage client communications (email, Slack, live calls).

Skills

Shopify enterprise

Team leadership

Asana proficiency

Tools

Shopify

Asana

Job description

elk Marketing · Full-time · Contractor

At elk Marketing, we're looking for a Development Project Manager to own Shopify development projects from initial client conversations through launch.

You'll sit at the intersection of our clients and a team of 10 developers, designers, and data contractors, translating business needs into clear scopes, actionable plans, and high-quality deliverables.

This isn't a ticket-management role. You'll work directly with clients to understand what they need, partner with technical teams to determine how to build it, and take ownership of timelines, quality, and delivery. You should be comfortable making decisions, solving problems without a predefined playbook, and keeping multiple projects moving at once.

WHAT YOU WOULD OWN

• Project intake - talk with the client about design ideas, content and requirements. Everything from a single landing page to a full site rebuild. Then, carry what they need to the design team and bring the feedback back

• Scopes + estimates - build project scopes and cost estimates off our existing templates

• The custom stuff - some projects do not have a defined process. You figure out who needs to be in the room, define the problem, and build the plan

• QA - review work from the dev team before it goes to the client. If it is not right, it does not go out

• Client comms - email, Slack and live on calls. Requirements, feedback, approvals

WHAT IS ON OUR BOARD RIGHT NOW

• Shopify theme upgrades

• Custom Shopify app builds

• Shopify site design + Liquid build

• Shopify Hydrogen headless development

• Ongoing Shopify updates for landing page builds and SEO work

• Custom conversion tracking + reporting solutions

WHAT WE NEED YOU TO HAVE

• Deep experience with enterprise-level Shopify projects. Themes, settings, the APP ecosystem, and how the whole thing fits together

• Experience managing a team of developers and talking to clients directly, not through an account manager

• Very comfortable in Asana. We run everything through it

Helpful, not required:

• Product feeds. Building feed connections into Google Merchant Center and META Ads

• Conversion tracking. Getting ecommerce and B2B tracking working again when it breaks

WHAT IS HARD ABOUT THIS JOB

In the spirit of transparency, I would rather tell you now than in week three.

• You will be holding 8 to 13 projects at once. Context switching is the job, not a distraction from it

• Some of the work has no playbook. A client asks for something nobody has built before and you go define it

• Launch days are launch days. Things break, and you are the one the client is talking to

• You sit between the dev team and the client, which means you are the person saying "this needs another week" to one side and "we can't release on the LIVE theme today" to the other

This is a pace job, not a sprint job. The projects that go well are the ones where somebody kept moving for eight weeks straight, not the ones that got rescued by a heroic weekend.

ABOUT elk MARKETING

elk Marketing is a digital growth agency founded in 2016, with more than 40 core team members. We partner with brands to drive growth through SEO, AI search, paid media, content, creative strategy, and web development.

Our clients range from growing ecommerce businesses to enterprise brands, including TaylorMade and HexClad. We bring strategy, creativity, and technical execution together to help our clients grow—and we're looking for people who take pride in delivering meaningful results.

$55 - $75 an hour