Senior CDN Program Manager – Media Tech $150K in Columbus

Company Profile

At Sand Cherry Associates, we excel in the design and delivery of strategic customer-centric initiatives through digitally native, data-empowered solutions. Our client's confidence in us is centered on exceptionally skilled, high-energy talent working with the support of the full Sand Cherry team. Finding the right match for this role is a critical aspect of continuing that success.

Overview

The Video Distribution Project Manager will manage the planning, coordination, and delivery of a large-scale terrestrial Content Delivery Network (CDN) initiative supporting satellite-terrestrial video distribution across the United States. This project manager role will support the cross-functional work required to deliver a resilient, scalable video distribution platform supporting peak demand, optimizing last-mile bandwidth consumption, controlling operating costs, and maintaining reliable service during significant weather events and other network disruptions.

The Project Manager will partner closely with video engineering, network architecture, operations, customers, affiliates, vendors, and other business stakeholders to translate technical strategy into executable plans, manage dependencies and risks, and drive testing, readiness, deployment, and operational handoff.

This is a remote role working mostly EST hours. All qualified candidates must be authorized to work without visa sponsorship or visa transfers.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain the integrated project plan, schedule, milestones, dependencies, resource needs, and delivery roadmap for the terrestrial CDN and packet recovery program.
• Coordinate cross-functional work across video engineering, network architecture, operations, testing, customer teams, affiliates, vendors, and external technology partners.
• Facilitate requirements, design, planning, status, risk, and decision meetings; document outcomes, owners, and due dates and ensure timely follow-through.
• Manage project scope, schedule, budget, RAID logs, decisions, change control, and executive status reporting across the full project lifecycle.
• Translate complex technical work involving CDN architecture, IP media transport, packet recovery, headends, capacity, and network monitoring into clear workstreams and actionable plans.
• Track delivery of capacity planning, traffic engineering, regional scalability, last-mile bandwidth optimization, and cost-management objectives.
• Coordinate test strategy and execution across laboratory, peak-demand, packet-loss, recovery, resiliency, weather-event, and operational-readiness scenarios.
• Establish and track measurable acceptance criteria, including recovery performance, latency, network availability, capacity, utilization, and operational reporting objectives.
• Manage vendor evaluations, procurement dependencies, implementation commitments, and delivery performance for technology partners and engineering resources.
• Identify, assess, and escalate risks and issues that may affect performance, interoperability, timeline, budget, customer readiness, or operational continuity.
• Coordinate deployment planning, customer and affiliate readiness, communications, cutover, implementation validation, and transition to ongoing operations and support.
• Ensure project deliverables align with applicable architecture standards, Concept of Operations (CONOPS), operational controls, monitoring requirements, and lifecycle management processes.
• Provide concise, decision-oriented updates to senior leaders and technical stakeholders, including progress, blockers, trade-offs, financial impacts, and recommended actions.
• Build strong working relationships across engineering, operations, vendors, customers, affiliates, and business teams while maintaining accountability for project outcomes.

Requirements

• 7+ years of project or program management experience leading complex technology, telecommunications, network, media, or infrastructure initiatives.
• Demonstrated experience managing large, cross-functional technical programs from planning through testing, deployment, operational readiness, and handoff.
• Working knowledge of large-scale video distribution, live and linear video delivery, Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), IP-based media transport, or distributed networks.
• Experience coordinating technical work involving satellite-terrestrial distribution, headends, earth stations, TAPs, receivers, packet recovery, media edge, or related video infrastructure is strongly preferred.
• Understanding of terrestrial IP networking, traffic management, capacity planning, network resiliency, monitoring, and optimization concepts.
• Experience managing integrated project plans, budgets, RAID logs, dependencies, change control, governance, status reporting, and executive communications.
• Experience developing and coordinating test plans, acceptance criteria, deployment readiness, cutover activities, and operational transition for critical technology platforms.
• Experience managing technology vendors and implementation partners.
• Familiarity with ARQ, RIST-based transport, packet recovery networks, or Video Services Forum specifications, including VSF TR-06-4 Parts 6 and 7, is a plus.
• Proven ability to understand the end-to-end video distribution ecosystem and connect technical delivery decisions to business outcomes.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and decision-making skills with the ability to manage competing priorities and make timely, data-informed recommendations.
• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to simplify complex technical issues for business and executive audiences.
• Strong collaboration and stakeholder-management skills with the ability to influence teams without direct authority.
• Proficiency with standard project management, documentation, reporting, and collaboration tools such as Microsoft Project, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Successful completion of applicable background screening requirements.

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Telecommunications, Broadcast Engineering, Computer Science, Business, Project Management, or a related discipline.
• PMP or Agile certification is preferred but not required.

Compensation

Sand Cherry Associates is required by Colorado law to include a reasonable estimate of the compensation range for this role. This is a long-term consulting opportunity with an annual salary range of $110,000–$150,000. Years of experience, level of education, geographic location, unique skills/qualifications for the specific role, and potential certifications can be key factors in the final compensation.

Benefits

Our team is unique — we are passionate about what we do. At Sand Cherry, Consultants know they are impacting and shaping our clients' industries. We recognize our employees for their contributions. Our culture is one of the most friendly and communicative in the consulting industry. Sand Cherry is not a top-heavy organization. We offer the opportunity to be part of a digital workforce and discover the experience that comes with self-responsibility in the workplace. Our team members manage their own workloads and are expected to deliver exceptional work for our clients. Professional career growth is one of our main priorities, as investing in our Consultants and empowering our people delivers the best results for our clients.