Senior Delivery Manager

Job Category: Program & Project Management

The Rainforest Alliance's mission is to protect forests, improve the livelihoods of farmers and forest communities, promote human rights, and help mitigate climate change by transforming business practices, land use, and consumer behavior. It partners with farmers, businesses, and governments to implement sustainable solutions for environmental and social challenges. The organization offers a positive work environment, emphasizing collaboration, purpose-driven impact, and opportunities for professional growth. Employees value its commitment to sustainability and ethical standards. Working there allows individuals to contribute to meaningful global change.

Role Purpose

The Senior Delivery Manager is accountable for leading the successful delivery of complex technological initiatives, from strategy and planning through to execution and handover. This role combines project and programme management expertise with a strong understanding of SaaS and Agile delivery methods to ensure high-quality, timely, and cost-effective outcomes. The Senior Delivery Manager works closely with senior stakeholders, cross-functional delivery teams, and third parties to manage scope, resources, risks, and dependencies across the full delivery lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities

The responsibilities and deliverables outlined in this statement are not exhaustive. The Senior Delivery Manager may be required to undertake additional duties or provide further deliverables as reasonably requested to support the successful delivery of change projects and associated initiatives.

• Integrated Delivery Planning - Develop and maintain consolidated delivery plans showing timelines, milestones, dependencies, and critical paths across Common Components, Agile squads, and Waterfall programmes.
• Quarterly & Annual Roadmaps - Provide forward-looking views of priorities, releases, and portfolio alignment, linking delivery commitments to organisational objectives and strategic outcomes.
• Dependency & Risk Mapping - Document and manage inter-team, inter-system, and vendor dependencies, ensuring proactive identification of delivery risks and mitigation strategies across all methodologies.

Governance and Reporting

• Portfolio-Level Dashboards - Maintain transparent delivery dashboards tracking velocity, milestones, risks, and overall progress across squads, programmes, and portfolios.
• Standards & Compliance - Ensure practices adhere to internal policies, regulations, and industry benchmarks in both Agile and Waterfall domains.
• Tooling & Data Integrity - Promote disciplined use of Jira and Confluence for backlog management, sprint tracking, documentation, and reporting, ensuring data accuracy for executive review.
• Governance Leadership - Contribute to steering committees and portfolio boards, reporting delivery health, risks, and recovery strategies as needed.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Stakeholder Mapping & Engagement - Identify and maintain maps of stakeholders, their influence, and interests; ensure business and product representation is secured for decision-making and prioritisation.
• Conflict Mediation - Act as a senior mediator to resolve conflicts between teams, functions, and stakeholders, ensuring alignment to overall goals, timelines, and benefits realisation.
• Executive Communication - Provide clear, value-focused updates tailored for senior stakeholders (CIO, COO, Portfolio Sponsors), highlighting delivery status, risks, and impacts on organisational objectives.

Delivery Management (Agile, Scaled Agile, Hybrid & Waterfall)

• Culture of Ownership - Foster accountability within squads and programmes, ensuring team members own quality, delivery outcomes, and risk management.
• End-to-End Delivery Leadership - Lead the delivery of SaaS platforms, Common Components, and enterprise solutions using Agile (Scrum, Kanban, Scaled Agile), Waterfall, or hybrid approaches, selecting the methodology best aligned to delivery objectives, risk profile, and stakeholder needs.
• Ways of Working Guide - Define, document, and embed delivery standards and processes (ceremonies, stage gates, tools, governance rhythms) to support both Agile squads and Waterfall programmes operating across Common Components.
• Onboarding & Engagement - Develop clear guidelines for consuming and integrating common components (integration patterns, delivery engagement model, escalation routes, key contacts), ensuring alignment across both iterative and linear delivery approaches.
• Delivery Playbooks - Shape and contribute to playbooks for dependency management, prioritisation, integration testing, cutover readiness, and risk handling across multiple teams and delivery methodologies.
• Squad & Programme Leadership - Lead multiple Agile squads through daily stand-ups and sprint ceremonies while also overseeing Waterfall delivery workstreams; remove blockers, manage escalations, and partner with Product Owners and Technical Leads to ensure delivery against prioritised backlogs and milestone commitments.
• End-to-end SaaS holistic implementation involves collaborating with both internal and external stakeholders and vendors to oversee all aspects of the process. This includes managing risks, dependencies, and issues, as well as developing comprehensive planning, release management and strategic roadmaps.
• Strategic Alignment - Partner with Product, Technology, and Business Change leaders to ensure all delivery initiatives-Agile, Scaled Agile, and Waterfall-are aligned to portfolio objectives, benefits, and budgets.
• Cross-Team Coordination - Coordinate across multiple delivery teams, programmes, and vendors to ensure dependencies are understood, risks are mitigated, and sequencing supports the wider roadmap.
• Senior Intervention - Step into in-flight projects and at-risk initiatives, applying senior delivery management expertise to troubleshoot, re-baseline, or accelerate progress without compromising quality.
• Governance & Reporting - Represent delivery health at Portfolio and Steering forums, providing a balanced view of progress, risks, financials, and resource utilisation across all delivery methodologies.

Knowledge

• Delivery Models - Strong knowledge of Waterfall and hybrid methodologies; deep expertise in Agile and Scaled Agile practices (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe).
• SaaS & Technology Lifecycle - End-to-end understanding of SaaS delivery including CI/CD pipelines, .Net and API-based integration, cloud deployment, uptime SLAs, and subscription operating models.
• Engineering & Best Practice - Familiarity with modern engineering practices, system integration patterns, and quality assurance approaches.
• Governance & Change - Sound understanding of delivery governance, risk management frameworks, benefits realisation, and business change processes.

Desired Role-Specific Qualifications

• Degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related discipline.
• Project management certifications such as PRINCE2 Practitioner or PMP.
• Cloud/DevOps awareness (e.g. AWS Cloud Practitioner, Azure Fundamentals).

Key Attributes

• Experienced Senior Delivery Management (3-5 years minimum) for complex and cross-cutting programmes and project.
• Results-driven, pragmatic, and proactive in delivery leadership.
• Comfortable managing ambiguity, complexity, and large-scale change.
• Strong decision-maker, balancing pace with risk and quality.
• Credible, collaborative, and influential across diverse stakeholder groups.
• Committed to building a high-performance, value-led delivery culture.
• Adaptable and resilient in fast-moving, evolving environments.

Deadline: 28 November 2025

Salary: Commensurate with experience

Notes: Only candidates legally authorized to work in the Netherlands or the UK will be considered.

If you have any questions about the job vacancy, please contact the HR department:

The Rainforest Alliance encourages diversity and inclusion across the global organization. With this commitment to diversity, we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, ages, disability and any other protected group.