Program Manager, Strategic Partnerships (opens in a new tab)

Justworks, Inc.; New York, Northern (NY, KY); Hybrid; USD 121,000 - 151,000; Full time

Job summary

Justworks, Inc. is seeking a Strategic Partnerships Program Manager to turn key partnerships into scalable growth opportunities.

You will collaborate with Revenue Strategy, Partnerships, and Business Development to translate opportunities into actionable plans and measurable outcomes. You will lead cross-functional initiatives, designing customer journeys, go-to-market motions, and enabling product capabilities, while managing financial models, marketing programs, and reporting.

Qualifications

• 5-7 years of experience in management consulting, partnerships, business development, strategy & operations, or a related field.
• Strong project and program management experience leading multi-workstream initiatives.
• Experience with Partnerships, Business Development, go-to-market, or strategic growth teams.
• Translate ambiguous opportunities into structured execution plans with clear ownership.
• Drive execution across stakeholders including Product, Engineering, Marketing, Sales, Finance.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills for executive updates.
• Fluency with AI and automation tools to boost productivity.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the cross-functional quarterback for high-priority partnership initiatives, driving execution from deal development through launch.
• Translate strategic objectives into clear execution plans with defined milestones.
• Build and manage project plans across multiple workstreams with owners and dependencies.
• Drive coordinated execution and hold stakeholders accountable to commitments and timelines.
• Anticipate dependencies and risks; remove blockers to keep initiatives moving.
• Coordinate decisions across workstreams and align teams on changes.
• Establish operating rhythms and concise updates for leadership.
• Use AI/automation to synthesize information and maintain status across teams.
• Capture learnings from launches to develop repeatable partnership approaches.

Skills

Strategic partnerships experience

Project management

Go-to-market

Executive communication

AI & automation fluency

Cross-functional leadership

Analytical thinking

Job description

At Justworks, you’ll enjoy a welcoming and casual environment, great benefits, wellness program offerings, company retreats, and the ability to interact with and learn from leaders in the startup community. We work hard and care about our most prized asset - our people.

We’re helping businesses get off the ground by enabling them to focus on running their business. We solve HR issues. We’re data-driven and never stop iterating. If you’d like to work in a supportive, entrepreneurial environment, are interested in building something meaningful and having fun while doing it, we’d love to hear from you.

We're united by shared goals and shared motivations at Justworks. These are best summed up in our company values, which are reflected in our product and in our team.

If this sounds like you, you’ll fit right in.

About the Role

Justworks is looking for a Strategic Partnerships Program Manager to help turn our most important partnerships into scalable, successful growth opportunities.

Sitting within Revenue Strategy, this individual contributor role will work closely with our Partnerships and Business Development teams to translate complex partnership opportunities into coordinated execution plans and measurable business outcomes.

Bringing a partnership to life often requires many parts of the business to move together—from designing the customer journey and go-to-market motion to enabling product and technology capabilities, operational processes, financial models, marketing programs, and reporting. You will serve as the cross-functional quarterback for these initiatives, connecting the strategy and commercial intent of a partnership with the teams and capabilities required to successfully launch it.

We’re looking for someone who combines strong strategic thinking and commercial instincts with exceptional project management and cross-functional leadership. You can take an ambiguous, complex opportunity, break it into a clear plan, anticipate what could get in the way, and drive a diverse group of stakeholders toward a shared outcome.

What You’ll Do

• Serve as the cross-functional quarterback for high-priority partnership initiatives, driving execution from deal development and agreement through launch and stabilization.
• Partner closely with Partnerships and Business Development leaders to understand the strategic and commercial objectives of each opportunity and translate them into clear execution plans.
• Build and manage comprehensive project plans across multiple workstreams, establishing owners, milestones, dependencies, decision points, risks, and success measures.
• Drive coordinated execution across the teams required to bring each partnership to life, creating clarity on responsibilities and holding stakeholders accountable to commitments and timelines.
• Anticipate dependencies and risks, remove blockers, and drive the decisions and tradeoffs required to keep initiatives moving.
• Connect decisions across workstreams, ensuring changes in one part of the business are understood and addressed across the broader initiative.
• Establish effective operating rhythms for each initiative, bringing together the right stakeholders at the right moments while avoiding unnecessary meetings and process.
• Maintain a clear, current view of initiative health and provide concise, decision-oriented updates to stakeholders and senior leaders across Partnerships, Revenue, Product, Marketing, etc.on progress, risks, dependencies, and next steps.
• Use AI and automation to improve how you manage complex initiatives—including maintaining project and workstream status, synthesizing information across teams, identifying risks and overdue dependencies, preparing meeting materials, and drafting recurring stakeholder and executive updates.
• Capture learnings from launches and develop repeatable approaches that improve how Justworks executes complex partnerships over time.

Who You Are

You are a strategic, commercially minded operator who thrives at the intersection of strategy and execution. You are equally comfortable understanding the business rationale behind a partnership and getting into the details required to make it work.

You are an exceptional project manager, but your impact goes beyond maintaining a project plan. You understand the objective, ask the questions others haven’t considered, connect decisions across workstreams, and create the clarity and accountability required to move complex initiatives forward.

You are comfortable operating without formal authority across teams with different priorities. You build credibility quickly, communicate clearly, hold people accountable, and know when to push for a decision or elevate a risk.

You are also a modern operator who actively uses AI and automation to reduce administrative work, improve visibility, and create more time for problem-solving and higher-value strategic work.

Qualifications

• 5-7 years of experience in management consulting, partnerships, business development, strategy & operations, strategic programs, or a related field.
• Strong project and program management experience, with demonstrated success leading complex, multi-workstream initiatives involving senior stakeholders across multiple functions.
• Experience working within or alongside Partnerships, Business Development, go-to-market, or strategic growth teams; direct partnerships experience is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to translate ambiguous strategic or commercial opportunities into structured execution plans with clear ownership, milestones, dependencies, and outcomes.
• Experience driving execution across a broad range of stakeholders, such as Product, Engineering, Marketing, Sales, Customer Success and Support, Revenue Operations, Finance, Legal, and Corporate Strategy.
• Strong commercial and analytical judgment, with the ability to understand business models, customer journeys, go-to-market motions, and partnership economics.
• Proven ability to anticipate risks, resolve blockers, drive decisions, and maintain accountability across teams without direct authority.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to synthesize complex work into concise executive-level updates, decisions, and recommendations.
• Strong judgment about when structure and process are necessary—and when they are getting in the way of execution.
• Fluency with AI and automation tools and demonstrated experience using them to improve personal productivity, project management, communication, and information synthesis.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-moving environment where the path from strategy to execution may not already be defined.

What Success Looks Like

Our most important partnership opportunities move from agreement to execution with speed, clarity, and accountability. The teams required to deliver each partnership understand what is expected of them, dependencies are identified early, decisions happen quickly, and leadership has clear visibility into progress and risk.

Our Partnerships and Business Development teams have a strong execution partner who can take a complex deal and quarterback the organization required to deliver it—allowing them to stay focused on building and growing strategic partner relationships.

Over time, Justworks becomes better and faster at bringing increasingly complex partnerships to market without adding unnecessary process or organizational complexity.

The base wage range for this position based in our New York City Office is targeted at $121,000.00 to $151,000.00 per year.

#LI-Hybrid #LI-JM1

Actual compensation is based on multiple factors that are unique to each candidate, including and not limited to skill set, level of relevant experience, and specific work location. Salary ranges for positions based in other locations may differ based on the cost of labor in that location.

For more information about Justworks’ Total Reward Philosophy, including all of the perks and benefits we are proud to offer our team members, please visit Total Rewards @ Justworks .

Diversity At Justworks

Justworks is committed to maintaining a workplace where diversity of identity, culture, and life experience is the norm and is celebrated authentically and respected consistently. Diversity in our work, our people, and our product drives creativity and innovation, entrepreneurial leadership and integrity, competitiveness, and collaboration throughout our business and in the market. We depend on our differences to make our team stronger, our workplace more dynamic, and our product accessible to all of our customers.

We’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer open to all qualified applicants regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital or familial status, disability, pregnancy, gender identity or expression, veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status. Justworks is fully dedicated to providing necessary support to candidates with disabilities who may require reasonable accommodations. We also provide reasonable accommodations to employees based on their sincerely held religious beliefs, as well as for other covered reasons consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws. If you're in need of a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at [e-mail] . Your comfort and success matter to us, and we're here to ensure an inclusive experience.

Just Be You

We’re committed to building a culture where everyone feels welcome, supported, and empowered to thrive. We believe that a wide range of perspectives, experiences, and identities strengthens our team and helps us create the kind of workplace—and world we want to see.

We believe that in order to gather accurate demographic information we need to move beyond traditional questions about gender, race and ethnicity, and sexual orientation in favor of more inclusive and open‑ended approaches. Of course, thinking around these areas is ever‑evolving so, wherever applicable please feel free to select "I prefer to self‑describe" and then elaborate so we can use your feedback to inform survey selections in the future.

Participation in this survey is completely optional. Any responses you choose to share will not be associated with your application and will not in any way be used in any hiring decision. We are collecting this information to deepen our understanding of our candidate pool and to continue to foster a welcoming and equitable hiring experience for all.

At Justworks, we are building an open, inclusive, and collaborative culture that values each person’s unique potential. We strive to help every Justworker grow with confidence in the collective service of our company, our community, and our customers.

We know that creating a truly inclusive workplace where everyone thrives is an ongoing journey—one that requires consistency, accountability, and shared commitment. We’re proud of the company we’re building together, one great Justworker at a time.