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Program Development Consultant

New York, NY

Overview

Understood is seeking a contractor to support program development on a deliverables-driven, time-limited basis. This is a contract role—not a full-time employee position—and the contractor will be engaged for their specialized expertise to complete clearly defined outputs within the contract term.

Scope of Work / Key deliverables

The contractor will be responsible for the following:

  • Design and support the launch of new programs from concept to rollout, pulling together existing tech and non-tech capabilities into coherent, well-defined offerings.
  • Audit current capabilities across teams, identify gaps and overlaps, and shape them into structured programs with clear goals, scope, and ownership.
  • Establish the operational foundation for each program, including workflows, documentation, tooling, and processes, that internal teams can run independently after handoff.
  • Engage with cross-functional stakeholders (product, engineering, operations, leadership) to align program design with company priorities and resourcing.
  • Define KPIs and reporting frameworks, establish baselines, and illustrate early impact to leadership.
  • Provide a clean handoff to internal owners, including documentation, training, and transition support.

Note: Contractors maintain control over the means and methods of completing their work, provided they meet all deliverables.

Required Qualifications

  • Proven track record designing and launching programs from scratch, ideally in a tech or tech-enabled environment.
  • Strong systems thinking, able to take scattered capabilities and organize them into something coherent and operable.
  • Excellent stakeholder management, able to align senior leaders and working teams without formal authority.
  • Bias toward action and self-direction; you can operate with ambiguity and minimal ramp-up.
  • Experience building lightweight, durable processes and documentation.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Familiarity with STEM education, workforce development, or neurodiversity
  • Experience with school- or educator-facing program models
  • Comfort working across both technical and non-technical teams and translating between them.
  • Existing relationships with STEM funders, implementation partners, or evaluation organizations

Contract Details

  • Estimated Hours
    • ~20 hours a week for approximately 6 months, with a defined scope of standing up to 2-3 programs and handing them off.
    • Must be able to work EST hour
  • Compensation: $100/hour, rate commensurate with experience
  • Contractor is responsible for all taxes, insurance, and equipment required to perform services.

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