Program Development Consultant

<h2><strong>Overview</strong></h2> <p>Understood is seeking a contractor to support <strong>program development</strong> 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.</p> <h2><strong>Scope of Work / Key deliverables</strong></h2> <p>The contractor will be responsible for the following:</p> <ul> <li>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.</li> <li>Audit current capabilities across teams, identify gaps and overlaps, and shape them into structured programs with clear goals, scope, and ownership.</li> <li>Establish the operational foundation for each program, including workflows, documentation, tooling, and processes, that internal teams can run independently after handoff.</li> <li>Engage with cross-functional stakeholders (product, engineering, operations, leadership) to align program design with company priorities and resourcing.</li> <li>Define KPIs and reporting frameworks, establish baselines, and illustrate early impact to leadership.</li> <li>Provide a clean handoff to internal owners, including documentation, training, and transition support.</li> </ul> <p>Note: Contractors maintain control over the means and methods of completing their work, provided they meet all deliverables.</p> <h2><strong>Required Qualifications</strong></h2> <ul> <li>Proven track record designing and launching programs from scratch, ideally in a tech or tech-enabled environment.</li> <li>Strong systems thinking, able to take scattered capabilities and organize them into something coherent and operable.</li> <li>Excellent stakeholder management, able to align senior leaders and working teams without formal authority.</li> <li>Bias toward action and self-direction; you can operate with ambiguity and minimal ramp-up.</li> <li>Experience building lightweight, durable processes and documentation.</li> </ul> <h2><strong>Preferred Qualifications</strong></h2> <ul> <li>Familiarity with STEM education, workforce development, or neurodiversity</li> <li>Experience with school- or educator-facing program models</li> <li>Comfort working across both technical and non-technical teams and translating between them.</li> <li>Existing relationships with STEM funders, implementation partners, or evaluation organizations</li> </ul> <h2><strong>Contract Details</strong></h2> <ul> <li><stron