The Engagement Manager leads client engagements in Higher Education, oversees project delivery, manages teams, and ensures alignment with institutional goals through transformation initiatives.
Job Description:
The Groove is seeking an Engagement Manager (EM) with deep Higher Education experience to lead client engagements and ensure successful delivery of transformation initiatives across Student, HR, and Finance domains. This role is responsible for managing client relationships, overseeing delivery teams, and ensuring outcomes align to institutional goals. The ideal candidate brings strong program leadership, Higher Ed domain expertise, and experience delivering enterprise solutions in complex environments.
Your Responsibilities
Client Leadership
- Serve as the primary point of contact for client leadership, including IT, functional leaders, and executive sponsors
- Build trusted relationships and act as a strategic advisor throughout the engagement
- Align project objectives to institutional priorities, balancing stakeholder needs across academic and administrative functions
Delivery Oversight
- Lead end-to-end delivery of projects, ensuring quality, timeliness, and client satisfaction
- Manage scope, budget, timeline, and risks across engagements
- Partner with technical and functional leads to ensure cohesive, high-quality delivery
Program & Team Management
- Lead cross-functional teams, including consultants, engineers, and analysts
- Drive accountability across the team for deliverables and outcomes
- Coach and develop team members while fostering a collaborative, high-performance culture
Higher Ed Expertise
- Guide clients through transformation across Student, HCM, and Finance systems
- Navigate the complexities of Higher Ed environments (shared governance, decentralized decision-making, compliance requirements)
- Bring best practices and insights specific to colleges, universities, and system offices
Change & Adoption
- Ensure alignment between technology, process, and people
- Support change management efforts including stakeholder engagement, communications, and adoption strategies
- Identify risks to adoption and develop mitigation strategies
Your Qualifications
Experience
- 5–8+ years of experience in consulting, program management, or enterprise system delivery
- Proven experience leading client-facing engagements
- Significant experience working with Higher Education institutions
Domain Expertise
- Strong understanding of Higher Ed operations, including student lifecycle, academic structures, and administrative functions
- Experience with enterprise platforms such as Workday, Student Information Systems (SIS), or ERPs
Leadership Skills
- Ability to lead and influence across diverse stakeholder groups
- Strong communication skills, with the ability to translate complex topics into clear, actionable insights
- Experience managing multiple workstreams and competing priorities
What Sets You Apart
- Experience with Workday implementations (Student, HCM, or Financials)
- Background in large-scale Higher Ed transformation programs
- Ability to operate effectively in complex, matrixed environments
- Passion for improving outcomes for students, faculty, and administration
Why The Groove
- Work on meaningful transformation initiatives across leading Higher Education institutions
- Be part of a collaborative, values-driven consulting team
- Opportunity to shape delivery practices and client impact in a high-growth environment
EEO Policy:
The Groove is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ancestry, genetics, gender identity or expression, disability, protected veteran or marital status.
Ready to embark on an exhilarating journey of innovation and collaboration? Apply now and be part of our exciting team at The Groove!
Similar Jobs
eCommerce • Healthtech • Kids + Family • Retail • Social Media
Own end-to-end product analytics for Babylist Wishlists and Celebrations. Build KPI frameworks, improve event instrumentation, analyze clickstream data, design experiments, and connect user behavior to retention and long-term value. Partner with product and engineering teams to influence strategy, create dashboards and reporting, and support AI-assisted analysis across multiple user types and business initiatives.
Top Skills:
A/B TestingAmplitudeChatgptClaudeClickstream AnalyticsCursorDbtDevinEvent InstrumentationHexLaunchdarklySigmaSQL
Fintech • Payments • Software
Build and manage education-sector client relationships through the full sales cycle, from prospecting and lead generation to closing. Develop new-business pipelines, communicate the company’s value proposition, achieve revenue quotas, and conduct consultative product demonstrations. Collaborate with product, technical, operations, and marketing teams to support solution delivery and implementation. Conduct market research, manage multiple projects, and grow new accounts across the Americas.
Top Skills:
CRMSaaSSalesforce
.png)
Consumer Web • eCommerce • Machine Learning • Software • Sports • Analytics
Build and deploy end-to-end AI solutions embedded within business teams. Identify high-value problems, rapidly prototype agentic applications, integrate AI with business workflows, and measure business impact. Partner with principal engineers and platform teams on architecture, drive stakeholder adoption, communicate across technical and business audiences, and mentor earlier-career builders. The role requires hands-on full-stack prototyping, API integration, production deployment, and ownership from discovery through adoption.
Top Skills:
Ai Orchestration PlatformsAPIsClaudeOpenai
What you need to know about the Boston Tech Scene
Boston is a powerhouse for technology innovation thanks to world-class research universities like MIT and Harvard and a robust pipeline of venture capital investment. Host to the first telephone call and one of the first general-purpose computers ever put into use, Boston is now a hub for biotechnology, robotics and artificial intelligence — though it’s also home to several B2B software giants. So it’s no surprise that the city consistently ranks among the greatest startup ecosystems in the world.
Key Facts About Boston Tech
- Number of Tech Workers: 269,000; 9.4% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
- Major Tech Employers: Thermo Fisher Scientific, Toast, Klaviyo, HubSpot, DraftKings
- Key Industries: Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, robotics, software, aerospace
- Funding Landscape: $15.7 billion in venture capital funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
- Notable Investors: Summit Partners, Volition Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, MassVentures, Highland Capital Partners
- Research Centers and Universities: MIT, Harvard University, Boston College, Tufts University, Boston University, Northeastern University, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, National Bureau of Economic Research, Broad Institute, Lowell Center for Space Science & Technology, National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories
