Program Manager

Location: Remote in the U.S. In-person/hybrid options in Chicago, IL and Washington, DC

Travel: 5% (informed by public health guidelines )

Type: Full-time

Start date: October 2025

Application deadline: August 13, 2025 at 11:59 pm ET

When you think about elections, you might think about popular candidates, “I voted” stickers, and all sorts of paperwork and deadlines. But behind the scenes are thousands of election officials in state and local governments who are working hard to make sure ballots are counted and voices are heard. At a time when election officials are facing unprecedented challenges and scrutiny, they need support in order to administer secure and inclusive elections and build trust among the public.

As Program Manager for the Values and Standards for Election Excellence (VSEE), you will support adoption and maintenance of a new set of standards that make clear what high performance looks like in U.S. election administration. This is big, bold work at the forefront of election administration, so an entrepreneurial spirit will help you succeed. You’ll report to an Associate Director in the Government Services department.

Responsibilities

• Manage the VSEE program - Serve as the lead staff member who manages internal adoption and maintenance of a set of voter-centric, pro-democracy standards for local election departments. Refine and update standards to support long-term maintenance and relevance. Share regular program updates and align planning with other workstreams like Certification and Professional Development.

• Engage key stakeholders - Identify approaches to build expertise and support adoption of the values and standards framework for CTCL staff and core project partners. Build and sustain relationships and feedback opportunities with local election officials, experts in the field, and core partners. Take the lead on storytelling for the values and standards.

• Manage a team - Lead direct reports to set goals every 6 months, and provide coaching in weekly 1:1s. Support direct reports to reach sustainable professional development goals and career milestones. Contribute to equitable hiring processes for new teammates as needed.

Qualifications

• Impactful communication - You have strong spoken and written communication skills. You present complex concepts and questions in a way that is easy to understand. Your communication is clear, instills confidence, and supports your team to move through ambiguity.

• Strategic thinking - You carefully look for vulnerabilities and threats while also exploring opportunities that help you achieve your goals. You can navigate conflicting opinions, engage people in problem-solving, and reach agreement.

• Decisiveness - You can make decisions about your work and determine programmatic priorities with minimal guidance. You communicate your decisions with a clear rationale. You can maintain balanced workloads for yourself and your team while achieving goals. 

• People management - You understand how to get things done through other people. You have experience delegating tasks, setting and holding people accountable to clear goals, and making the most of your own time to get results. You can adjust your approach as needed to effectively lead teammates and external partners that you don’t manage directly.

• Program or project management - You have experience with project or program management and familiarity with project management tools and best practices. You can create a project plan that defines what success looks like, support teammates to contribute as planned, and successfully achieve project goals, all with minimal supervision.

• Equity consciousness - You have skills and experiences that help you understand voters with limited access to the election system: voters who are newly eligible, have limited English proficiency, live with disabilities, or are from communities that are impacted by the digital divide or historical disenfranchisement due to race. 

Additionally, eligible candidates must live in the United States and be eligible to work in the United States.

About the Center for Tech and Civic Life

CTCL is a nonpartisan nonprofit that connects Americans with the information they need to become and remain civically engaged, and ensures that our elections are more professional, inclusive, and secure. We do this by collecting and disseminating civic information to the public, connecting election officials with tools and training, and advocating for increased government funding for election departments across the country.

To date, we’ve published civic datasets that answer the questions “What’s on my ballot?” and “Who represents me?” which have been accessed over 250 million times. We’ve trained thousands of election officials, serving over 80 million voters, on topics like election website design and cybersecurity best practices. Our advocacy efforts have led to $468 million in new state & federal appropriations for election administration.

Application Process

• Click apply to upload your resume and answer some initial questions. (Only applications submitted through this careers site will be considered.) This should take approximately 30 minutes.

• We will email a status update to every applicant by August 20. Please check your spam folder if you don’t see an email from us. If you are selected to move forward in our process, we will invite you to submit a work sample, along with thoughts about your approach to that work, to demonstrate your qualifications.

• If you are selected to move forward to the final phase of our process, a video interview and reference check will be conducted to determine if you are the best fit for the position. The interview will take up to 1 hour.

The Center for Tech and Civic Life is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We encourage people of all races, colors, religions, national origins, sexual orientations, genders, sexes, ages, abilities, branches of military service, and political party affiliations to apply.