Senior Project Manager, Client Experience

Remote, US-Based, Contractor (Eastern Time hours)$70-$85 per hourLead multiple complex client engagements at the same time, creating the clarity, structure, and momentum teams need to deliver exceptional work.Extraordinary work requires extraordinary project leadership.Variate is looking for a Senior Project Manager to lead the operations of high-impact brand, product, and customer experience engagements for ambitious global organizations.This is not a task-tracking role. You will own the conditions that make excellent work possible. You will turn complexity into clear plans, align teams around decisions, anticipate risk, and keep multiple projects moving without sacrificing quality, margin, or trust.Variate works as an embedded extension of our clients’ teams. Our engagements require project leaders who can navigate complex organizations, establish shared direction, and help teams move from uncertainty to confident action.If you operate with high accountability, communicate with precision, and know how to bring order to fast-moving work, we want to meet you.What You Will DoOwn the engagement: Manage several client projects simultaneously from onboarding through completion. Establish the plan, maintain momentum, and ensure teams deliver against clear business, customer, schedule, and financial expectations.Create clarity: Translate complex scopes, conversations, and dependencies into clear priorities, responsibilities, timelines, and next steps. Make sure every person understands what is happening, why it matters, and what they need to do next.Protect outcomes: Keep teams focused on the decisions and outcomes that matter most. Identify when activity is drifting away from the client’s goals and redirect the work before momentum is lost.Lead project planning: Build and maintain project plans, schedules, staffing models, budgets, forecasts, decision logs, risk registers, and status reporting across multiple concurrent engagements.Manage scope and margin: Track progress against statements of work, budgets, staffing assumptions, and sold-in margin. Surface scope changes early and work with leadership to resolve them before they affect delivery or client trust.Anticipate risk: Identify unclear ownership, missing decisions, stakeholder misalignment, timeline pressure, and resource constraints before they become delivery problems.Drive client communication: Lead status meetings, working sessions, and project communications with confidence. Document decisions, clarify responsibilities, and close every meeting with agreed next steps and timing.Align multidisciplinary teams: Coordinate strategists, researchers, UX designers, brand designers, writers, analysts, and client stakeholders without adding unnecessary process.Maintain operating rhythm: Establish a consistent cadence for internal reviews, client reviews, executive checkpoints, project health reporting, and financial updates.Move fast with discipline: Use AI and project management tools to improve planning, synthesis, documentation, forecasting, and communication without reducing judgment or accountability.What You BringProven project leadership: 5+ years managing complex digital, product, brand, CX, or design engagements in an agency, consultancy, or similarly fast-paced client environment.Multi-project command: Demonstrated experience managing several active projects, teams, timelines, and budgets at the same time.Operational precision: Strong command of project planning, resource coordination, budget tracking, forecasting, scope management, risk management, and executive reporting.Client confidence: Clear, composed, and credible communication with senior client stakeholders. You can lead difficult conversations without creating unnecessary friction.Commercial awareness: You understand how scope, staffing, utilization, margin, timing, and client satisfaction affect the health of an engagement.Decision discipline: You know the difference between activity and progress. You clarify decisions, document commitments, and ensure unresolved questions have owners.Strong judgment: You recognize when to solve a problem independently, when to involve leadership, and when a project requires a direct conversation.High accountability: You take ownership of outcomes. You do not wait for someone else to notice that a deadline, decision, or relationship is at risk.Tool fluency: Experience with project management, documentation, communication, financial tracking, and collaboration platforms. You learn new systems quickly and maintain excellent data hygiene.What Sets You ApartYou have managed several client engagements with competing deadlines without allowing quality or communication to decline.You have led projects involving UX, product design, brand, research, content, technology, or design systems.You have managed fixed-fee and time-and-materials engagements.You have improved a project management process that increased delivery speed, predictability, margin, or client satisfaction.You have identified scope or delivery risk early and successfully realigned the client and internal team.You have experience supporting enterprise organizations with complex stakeholder groups, approval structures, or governance requirements.You understand that project management is not administrative support. It is the design of the conditions in which teams make good decisions.What Success Looks Like in the First 90 DaysTake ownership of multiple active client engagements and establish clear project health across scope, schedule, staffing, budget, decisions, and risk.Build trust with Design Directors, delivery teams, and client stakeholders through clear communication and reliable follow-through.Lead client status meetings with confidence, ensuring decisions, responsibilities, and next steps are explicit.Identify and resolve at least one delivery, scope, resource, or communication risk before it affects the client relationship.Improve an existing planning, reporting, forecasting, or project communication process with visible and documented impact.Establish a reliable operating rhythm that helps teams move faster with less confusion.Who Should Not ApplyThis role is not for everyone. Do not apply if:You need daily direction before taking action.You have only managed one project at a time.Your experience is limited to maintaining task boards or scheduling meetings.You avoid difficult conversations about scope, performance, budget, or accountability.You wait until deadlines are missed before raising risks.You believe project management is separate from client experience.You struggle to communicate clearly with designers, executives, and clients.You add process without understanding the problem it needs to solve.You confuse being busy with making progress.You prefer comfort over accountability.You are still learning the fundamentals of client project management. Variate is where experienced operators come to perform.Why VariateVariate designs customer experiences that remove hesitation and create confident decisions. Through Decision Design™, we align emotion, logic, and behavior so customers can understand value, trust the experience, and move forward.We have partnered with organizations including Marriott International, Carnival Cruise Line, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Amerant Bank, Stanley Black & Decker, and Music & Arts. Our work has helped unify complex organizations, improve customer journeys, strengthen adoption, and generate measurable growth.Our clients range from early-growth companies seeking adoption to mid-growth organizations restoring alignment and enterprises unifying complex systems. Each requires a different operating approach, but all depend on clarity, trust, and disciplined execution.We care deeply about the people we work with. Our culture balances high standards with genuine support. We value relationships, teamwork, initiative, empathy, and the pursuit of excellence.This is an opportunity to work with a deeply experienced team that partners directly with visionary leaders across startups, growth-stage organizations, and Fortune 500 brands.Our clients choose Variate for our precision, pace, and partnership. Every engagement demands excellence and rewards it in equal measure.Interview Selection CriteriaWe are selective because this role directly affects the quality of our work, the confidence of our clients, and the performance of our teams.Multi-project leadership - We are looking for clear evidence that you have successfully managed several complex projects at the same time. Your examples should explain the scope, team structure, budget or timeline constraints, risks, decisions, and results.Client and team communication - You must be able to communicate with precision across different audiences. We will evaluate how you lead conversations, explain risk, resolve ambiguity, and establish accountability without creating unnecessary friction.Operational and commercial judgment - Strong candidates understand the connection between project delivery, scope, staffing, margin, client satisfaction, and account growth. They recognize risks early and act before those risks compound.Agency or consultancy experience - Experience in a respected design agency, product consultancy, professional services firm, or similarly demanding client environment is highly valued. It demonstrates comfort with pace, ambiguity, accountability, and complex client work.Experience creates the signal. Judgment, ownership, and communication confirm it.Compensation$70-$85 per hourContract: Compensation range to be determined based on experience.Consistent, long-term contract work with contract-to-hire potential.NO RECRUITERS.