Director, Professional Services

OpenGov is the leader in AI and ERP solutions for local and state governments in the U.S. More than 2,000 cities, counties, state agencies, school districts, and special districts rely on the OpenGov Public Service Platform to operate efficiently, adapt to change, and strengthen the public trust. Category-leading products include enterprise asset management, procurement and contract management, accounting and budgeting, billing and revenue management, permitting and licensing, and transparency and open data. These solutions come together in the OpenGov ERP, allowing public sector organizations to focus on priorities and deliver maximum ROI with every dollar and decision in sync. Learn about OpenGov’s mission to power more effective and accountable government and the vision of high-performance government for every community at O penGov.com .

Job Summary:

The Director of Professional Services leads a team of Project Managers

and implementation experts responsible for implementing OpenGov solutions on time, on

budget, and with high customer satisfaction. The role owns delivery predictability and

portfolio profitability across a defined product vertical, enabling project managers to

forecast and deliver accurately and enabling implementation analysts and consultants to

deliver quality configuration, training, testing, and user acceptance.

The Director partners closely with Product Management and Engineering to translate

implementation reality into product direction, to reduce the manual effort required to

stand up a customer, and to stand up engineering-led custom solutions where the

standard product does not yet meet a customer commitment. The Director also serves as

executive sponsor on projects within their portfolio.

This is a role for someone who can hold two responsibilities at once: run a disciplined

delivery organization against hard financial targets, and shape what gets built so that

delivery gets easier and the product continues to grow with our customers.

Responsibilities:

Delivery Leadership and Operational Excellence

• Lead a team that achieves results and delivers intended, measurable outcomes for the

business and for our customers.

• Lead project managers with the operational rigor that drives predictability in scope,

schedule, and effort.

• Enable project managers with the tools, standards, and skills to set scope, timeline, and

deliverables for successful deployments across multiple customers simultaneously.

• Enable implementation analysts and consultants with the tools and skills to identify needs, configure and test solutions, and train customers effectively.

• Own forecast accuracy for the portfolio, including hours to complete, revenue recognition timing, and go-live dates.

• Establish command and control of project delivery, internally and externally, when projects are escalated.

• Identify early signs of project and customer risk and devise risk response strategies that

keep teams moving forward.

• Set the expectation that the team works AI-first: apply AI tooling to scoping, configuration, testing, documentation, status reporting, and knowledge capture, and measure the hours it returns to the portfolio.

• Lead the ongoing enhancement and codification of OpenGov’s project delivery

methodology so that improvements persist beyond any single project or person.

Portfolio Financial Ownership

• Manage P&L for portfolio profitability, including margin, utilization, and hours-over-budget performance.

• Drive efficiency gains during implementation so customers realize time to value as quickly as possible.

• Ensure proper resource planning against a rolling forecast.

• Participate in the sales process as needed to ensure proper scoping, resourcing, and

deliverability of what is being sold.

Product and Engineering Partnership

• Serve as the delivery organization’s primary voice into Engineering partners for the

assigned vertical, bringing structured, evidence-backed input rather than anecdote.

• Convert implementation friction into a prioritized product signal: quantify where

configuration effort, workarounds, and repeated custom work are consuming hours, and translate that into concrete product requests with supporting delivery data.

• Participate in roadmap and planning cycles as a standing partner, advocating for the

configurability, extensibility, and deployment tooling that reduce services effort per

customer.

• Provide field validation for in-development features by coordinating design partners, early adopters, and pilot deployments within the portfolio, and by returning clear, timely

feedback to product teams.

• Track and report the delivery impact of shipped product improvements, including

reduction in implementation hours, shortened time to go-live, and lower escalation volume.

• Help shape release readiness from a delivery standpoint, ensuring that documentation,

enablement, and migration paths exist before a feature reaches customers at scale.

Customer and Executive Engagement

• Serve in an executive sponsor role and travel to customer sites to solidify relationships and ensure projects remain on track.

• Build strong cross-functional and customer relationships that hold up under pressure

during escalations.

• Produce key customer references through high quality of delivery.

• Partner with cross-functional teams to secure required resources and to set appropriate

expectations with internal and external stakeholders.

Team Leadership

• Inspire and persuade the team to buy into the overall company vision and to deliver a high standard of customer satisfaction.

• Build and develop a high-performing team: cultivate top talent, coach for growth, and take swift, fair action on underperformance while sustaining trust and collaboration.

• Act like an owner. Navigate business challenges and opportunities to deliver productive

outcomes, and demonstrate commitment to the organizational mission, vision, and culture.

Requirements and Preferred Experience:

Required

• Minimum of five years leading professional services delivery teams in a SaaS environment, including direct P&L ownership.

• Demonstrated experience driving an AI-first mentality across a delivery team: identifying where AI can remove manual effort from implementation, configuration, documentation, and reporting, and holding the team accountable for actually adopting it rather than treating it as optional.

• Track record of partnering with Product and Engineering organizations to influence

roadmap priorities using delivery data.

• Experience scoping and delivering custom or configured solutions in coordination with

engineering teams, including managing the commercial and support implications of that work.

• Strong analytical thinking, a systems perspective, and diligent process analysis skills.

• Strong initiative and innovative thinking, with the ability to work in detail and translate

findings into a big-picture view.

• Ability to adapt to a rapidly changing product and respond strategically to customer

needs.

• Experience building high-performing teams and managing performance directly.

Experience with risk mitigation, risk management, and escalation handling.

• Comfort working with delivery and product data directly, including utilization, effort, and escalation reporting.

• Communicate with confidence and credibility at the executive level, internally and with

customers.

• Comfortable using AI-native tools to accelerate workflows and improve efficiency.

Preferred

• Experience with government processes, protocols, and use cases applicable to our

software.

• Familiarity with software development practices and release cycles sufficient to engage

credibly with engineering teams on scope and feasibility.

• Experience defining the boundary between product capability and services delivery in a

growing SaaS organization.

Compensation:

Chicago, IL: $180,000 - $200,000

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