Lead Program Manager

About the role

AG Tech builds loan origination and loan management systems (LOS/LMS) for NBFIs and small-to-mid-sized banks. As our client portfolio grows from single engagements to multiple concurrent implementations, we're creating a dedicated program-management function — and you'll be its first hire.

You will own client delivery end to end across the portfolio: from contract signature through implementation, UAT, go-live and handover to Support. You'll be the client's senior contact for schedule, status and governance, and the person inside AG Tech who makes sure every engagement runs on a plan, not on improvisation. As the first Program Manager, you'll shape how AG Tech runs client delivery, so this role has an outsized, foundational impact.

You report to the Head of Tech Operations. This is the Expert level of our Tech Ops PMO career track: the most senior individual-contributor role in program management. It carries no line management. You lead through judgement, standards and mentoring, not through a reporting line. As we hire more Program Managers, you'll help shape how they work and grow.

What you'll do

- Own the project plan for each client engagement — and the integrated view across them: phases, milestones, dependencies, critical paths and shared-resource conflicts. Build them from Engineering estimates and product scope, and keep them honest week over week.

- Run client and portfolio governance: chair weekly status meetings and steering committees, publish status reports, maintain the decisions log, and keep client stakeholders confident through predictability. Run portfolio reviews with AG leadership where trade-offs (descope, re-resource or move the date) get closed by the right owners.

- Own the change request process: every scope change enters through a formal gate, gets sized and decided by the right owners, and its schedule/commercial impact is communicated clearly to the client.

- Lead escalated scope disputes and commercial discussions with senior client management. Bring together Product's requirements facts and Engineering's delivery implications, and get commitments approved through the right delegated authority.

- Maintain the risk and issue log, surface slippage early with options, and drive trade-off decisions to closure with leadership.

- Coordinate cross-functional execution across Product, Engineering, QA and UI/UX — including UAT planning, defect triage cadence, go-live readiness and formal handover to Support/CSM.

- Drive client sign-offs, including technical document approvals (e.g., Integration Design Documents) with client IT and InfoSec teams.

- As the PMO grows, mentor future Program Managers through structured feedback, plan and governance reviews, and pairing on difficult client situations.

What this role deliberately does not own

We have clear decision rights, and we protect them:

- Product decisions (what we build, in what order and why) belong to Product Managers, within their delegated authority.

- Technical decisions and estimates (how it's built, by whom and how long it takes) belong to Engineering. You will never re-estimate, override or debate architecture. Your authority is over the process , not the content of decisions.

- Commercial commitments need the applicable delegated authority. You lead the discussion; you don't commit on your own.

- Line management. You report to the Head of Tech Operations. Future Program Managers will too. You develop them through mentoring and standards, not through a reporting line.

You can force a decision to be made by a deadline; you cannot make it yourself.

If you read that and feel relieved rather than constrained, you're our kind of candidate.

What we're looking for

- 10+ years of relevant experience managing client-facing software implementations, including running several concurrent engagements or a portfolio. Banking/fintech systems (core banking, LOS/LMS, payments) preferred, from the vendor or client side.

- A track record of leading formal governance and escalations with senior client management: steering committees, change control, scope disputes and commercial discussions.

- Evidence that you've built or substantially improved a delivery practice that other people adopted, and that it measurably improved predictability.

- Experience mentoring and developing other project or program managers — you'll be building a practice others will join.

- Enough technical literacy to understand integrations, environments and dependencies and ask sharp questions, without the urge to design the solution yourself.

- Strong stakeholder management: able to hold a firm line with a demanding senior client while keeping the relationship warm.

- Structured communicator in Mongolian and English, with fluent English and Japanese required (written reporting matters in this role).

Nice to have

- Experience on the client side of a banking system implementation (bank PMO, transformation office or IT project team).

- Familiarity with regulatory/InfoSec approval processes at financial institutions.

- Experience setting up a PMO or delivery function from scratch.

- PMP, PRINCE2, MSP or equivalent. Useful, not required; we care more about scars than certificates.