Principal Program Manager - Informatics

Job Summary

Aptive is seeking a Principal Program Manager to provide senior leadership, strategic direction, and operational oversight for a Department of Veterans Affairs health informatics and electronic health record modernization support program.

This role will lead multidisciplinary teams supporting program management, clinical informatics, Agile/SAFe delivery, stakeholder engagement, quality assurance, risk management, deliverable execution, and continuous process improvement across VA enterprise health informatics workstreams.

The ideal candidate brings deep VA/VHA health informatics experience, strong command of federal program delivery, and the ability to manage complex modernization efforts involving VistA/CPRS, Oracle Health/Cerner, clinical decision support, readiness, training, and implementation support.

Primary Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary program management lead and key client-facing point of contact for VA health informatics workstreams.
• Manage cost, schedule, performance, staffing, risk, quality, deliverables, and issue escalation across multiple concurrent workstreams.
• Lead program planning, kickoff, monthly status reporting, staffing roster updates, and project closeout activities.
• Guide Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe practices to support lean business case development, feature delivery, sprint ceremonies, retrospectives, and continuous improvement.
• Coordinate multidisciplinary SMEs, clinical informaticists, health systems specialists, analysts, and technical resources to support IHP, HITT, IRCP, CIOC, VistA/CPRS education/training, and related activities.
• Develop and maintain strong working relationships with Government leads, VA program offices, VAMC stakeholders, field informatics staff, and cross-functional contractor teams.
• Apply proactive risk, issue, and opportunity management to anticipate schedule, deployment, resource, and stakeholder impacts.
• Ensure deliverables are accurate, timely, high quality, compliant with client expectations, and aligned to program objectives.

Minimum Qualifications

• Master's degree in a relevant field; additional years of directly relevant experience may be considered for highly qualified candidates when contractually permissible.
• 15+ years of program or project management experience supporting large federal healthcare, health IT, or clinical informatics programs.
• 10+ years of experience managing complex programs for a federal agency or large corporation; VA/VHA experience strongly preferred.
• Experience managing a portfolio of diverse IT or health informatics projects, including cost, schedule, performance, risk, staffing, and quality management.
• Experience with SAFe Lean-Agile principles, Scrum/Agile delivery, and organizational change or operational excellence initiatives.
• PMP, Scrum Master, SAFe, or equivalent industry-recognized certification.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a public trust clearance.
• Legal authorization to work in the U.S.

Desired Qualifications

• Direct experience supporting VA Office of Health Informatics, CIDMO, FIS, EHRM, IHP, HITT, IRCP, CIOC, or VistA/CPRS-related programs.
• Experience leading clinical informatics teams or health IT modernization programs involving VistA/CPRS and Oracle Health/Cerner.
• Demonstrated ability to build consensus and coalitions across enterprise stakeholders and geographically dispersed teams.
• Strong writing, briefing, facilitation, and executive stakeholder management skills.
• Experience developing CPMPs, integrated master schedules, risk registers, monthly progress reports, staffing plans, operational guides, SOPs, dashboards, and quality review processes.

About Aptive

Aptive partners with federal agencies to achieve their missions through improved performance, streamlined operations and enhanced service delivery. Based in Alexandria, Virginia, we support more than a dozen agencies including Veterans Affairs, Transportation, Defense, Homeland Security and the National Science Foundation. ​

We specialize in applying technology, creativity and human-centered services to optimize mission delivery and improve experiences for millions of people who count on government services every day. ​

Founded: 2012Employees: 300+ nationwide

EEO Statement

Aptive is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, parental status, veteran status, age, disability, or any other protected class.

Veterans, members of the Reserve and National Guard, and transitioning active-duty service members are highly encouraged to apply.