Senior Program Manager, Vendor and Scaled Operations

Senior Program Manager, Vendor & Scaled Operations within Thumbtack's Service Operations PMO. The role owns the outsourced and scaled delivery model, including the strategy, governance, and long-horizon programs that determine how a meaningful share of Thumbtack's service is delivered. The role is high-leverage and high-ambiguity, and includes building infrastructure that outlasts the role. Thumbtack is an app that helps homeowners complete repairs, maintenance, and improvements, working with a community of 300,000 local service businesses.

Responsibilities

Own Thumbtack's vendor and outsourcing strategy for Service Operations, including sourcing decisions, make-versus-buy recommendations, capacity strategy, and the commercial relationship alongside Legal, Finance, and Procurement; Design and optimize the governance model for vendor performance, including SLA and scorecard architecture, QBR structure, decision rights, escalation paths, and remediation playbooks; Own a portfolio of programs, setting strategy, sequencing work, and establishing operating rhythms for distributed, multi-party delivery; Build the measurement framework for the scaled delivery model, including quality, SLA attainment, forecast accuracy, cost-to-serve, and leading indicators; Align senior leaders across Service Operations, IT, Legal, Finance, Product, and Workforce Management and drive adoption through teams and partners; Identify and build AI and automation that reduces coordination overhead and improves oversight, and coach program managers while institutionalizing playbooks and standards

Requirements

8+ years in program or project management, including 3+ years owning vendor, BPO, or outsourced delivery relationships at scale; Experience with multiple vendors, multiple sites, or a vendor transition is strongly preferred; Proficiency in program management tooling (e.g., Jira, Linear, Coda, Smartsheet) and fluency across Agile and Waterfall approaches; Deep vendor ownership and sourcing judgment, including having personally owned an outsourcing relationship end to end and built and defended a make-versus-buy or vendor expansion case with cost, quality, and risk modeling; Portfolio-level ownership of multiple concurrent scale programs with prioritization and capacity calls; Track record of building durable infrastructure such as SLA and scorecard architecture, governance models, transition playbooks, and reporting systems; Comfort where the playbook doesn't exist, and experience mentoring program managers

Nice to have

PMP, PgMP, or equivalent