HR and Payroll Systems Modernization Portfolio Project Manager

Company: Guidehouse
Location: Washington
Posted on: January 19, 2026

Job Description:

Job Family: Technology Consulting Travel Required: Up to 10% Clearance Required: Ability to Obtain Public Trust What You Will Do: - Manage individual projects under the Strategic Project Management Office, including HR and Payroll modernization initiatives, data migration efforts, system integrations, and enterprise modernization projects. - Draft and maintain integrated project plans, executive strategic roadmaps , risk management strategies, and cross-functional timelines, resource plans, and critical paths - Provide regular program updates, risks, concerns, and executive-level insights to senior leadership - Coordinate with application leads, functional owners, integrators, and technical teams to ensure dependencies, system impacts, and timelines are fully understood and managed. - Facilitate recurring program meetings, workshops, and working sessions to drive alignment, decision-making, and issue resolution. - Publish agendas, meeting minutes, action items, risks, and decisions for all PMO-led meetings. - Maintain a comprehensive RAID log and a formal Risk Management Plan encompassing resource risks, technical risks, data migration risks, workaround strategies, and design impacts. - Track more than 100 system integrations (Payroll inbound/outbound, HR application changes, SAP, UAP, EEB, PIM, S/4HANA) across multiple modernization efforts. - Manage stakeholder expectations and maintain an up-to-date stakeholder register across all active projects. - Prepare communications, briefings, status reports, and executive?ready presentation material. - Support coordination across parallel modernization initiatives such as Retirement Modernization, SAP-to-Cloud Migration, SSoT data model changes, HR BI modernization, performance modernization, JBM decouple, ATS modernization, and related HR/Payroll transformation efforts. What You Will Need: - Minimum of six (6) years of relevant experience, examples include: program or project management supporting enterprise?scale, multi?year IT modernization or business transformation initiatives for payroll or HR system portfolios. - A Bachelor’s degree is required. - US Citizenship is required due to client project requirements. - A PMP- Project Management Professional certification is required. - Proven ability to manage large programs with multiple workstreams, high interdependencies, and executive visibility. - Strong command of industry-standard PM methodologies (PMP, Agile, hybrid approaches) and enterprise project management tools. - Demonstrated success in: - Building and maintaining complex project schedules - Managing cross-functional teams - Leading executive-level briefings - Facilitating working sessions and driving decision-making - Excellent organizational, documentation, communication, and stakeholder management skills. - Ability to anticipate issues, conduct risk analysis, and build mitigation plans across technical, functional, and schedule dimensions. - Experience in IT PMO for a large payroll technology implementation or a large human capital management technology implementation. - Experience coordinating with multiple technical and business teams simultaneously (HR, Payroll, Financial Systems, Data Engineering, Integration Platforms, Cloud Operations). - Ability to work with highly complex legacy-to-cloud transition programs, particularly those involving parallel operations and large-scale data migration. What Would Be Nice To Have: - Agile Certification (such as PMI-ACP, Certified ScrumMaster, or equivalent) is preferred. - Hands-on familiarity with ServiceNow HR workflows or HR process modernization initiatives. - Prior involvement in implementing Single Source of Truth (SSoT) data architectures. - Change management, communications strategy, or organizational readiness expertise. - Federal consulting experience and/or managing PMO environments with technical SMEs and analyst support teams. - Technology certifications relative to IT Modernization initiatives or associate disciplines such as (but not limited to) AWS Cloud Practitioner, Azure Fundamentals, COMPTIA Security, CompTIA Cloud Essentials, FinOps Practitioner, etc - Experience in: - Direct experience with SaaS Payroll solutions (Ceridian, Workday, Oracle, SAP SuccessFactors, or similar) - Experience delivering analytics of BI modernization efforts (Databricks, modern reporting platforms, SAP Business Warehouse, etc) - Experience implementing SAP for Human Capital Management to include migrating from SAP-HCM to SAP S/4 HANA The annual salary range for this position is $130,000.00-$216,000.00. Compensation decisions depend on a wide range of factors, including but not limited to skill sets, experience and training, security clearances, licensure and certifications, and other business and organizational needs. What We Offer: Guidehouse offers a comprehensive, total rewards package that includes competitive compensation and a flexible benefits package that reflects our commitment to creating a diverse and supportive workplace. Benefits include: - Medical, Rx, Dental & Vision Insurance - Personal and Family Sick Time & Company Paid Holidays - Position may be eligible for a discretionary variable incentive bonus - Parental Leave and Adoption Assistance - 401(k) Retirement Plan - Basic Life & Supplemental Life - Health Savings Account, Dental/Vision & Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts - Short-Term & Long-Term Disability - Student Loan PayDown - Tuition Reimbursement, Personal Development & Learning Opportunities - Skills Development & Certifications - Employee Referral Program - Corporate Sponsored Events & Community Outreach - Emergency Back-Up Childcare Program - Mobility Stipend About Guidehouse Guidehouse is an Equal Opportunity Employer–Protected Veterans, Individuals with Disabilities or any other basis protected by law, ordinance, or regulation. Guidehouse will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable law or ordinance including the Fair Chance Ordinance of Los Angeles and San Francisco. If you have visited our website for information about employment opportunities, or to apply for a position, and you require an accommodation, please contact Guidehouse Recruiting at 1-571-633-1711 or via email at RecruitingAccommodation@guidehouse.com. All information you provide will be kept confidential and will be used only to the extent required to provide needed reasonable accommodation. All communication regarding recruitment for a Guidehouse position will be sent from Guidehouse email domains including @guidehouse.com or guidehouse@myworkday.com. Correspondence received by an applicant from any other domain should be considered unauthorized and will not be honored by Guidehouse. Note that Guidehouse will never charge a fee or require a money transfer at any stage of the recruitment process and does not collect fees from educational institutions for participation in a recruitment event. Never provide your banking information to a third party purporting to need that information to proceed in the hiring process. If any person or organization demands money related to a job opportunity with Guidehouse, please report the matter to Guidehouse’s Ethics Hotline. If you want to check the validity of correspondence you have received, please contact recruiting@guidehouse.com. Guidehouse is not responsible for losses incurred (monetary or otherwise) from an applicant’s dealings with unauthorized third parties. Guidehouse does not accept unsolicited resumes through or from search firms or staffing agencies. All unsolicited resumes will be considered the property of Guidehouse and Guidehouse will not be obligated to pay a placement fee.

Keywords: Guidehouse, Potomac , HR and Payroll Systems Modernization Portfolio Project Manager, IT / Software / Systems , Washington, Maryland