Programme Manager - Network
Job description
About the role
You own the operational heartbeat of the Network squad, translating roadmap intent into a structured programme. You guard delivery timelines, coordinate cross-functional inputs, and remove ambiguity for technical teams. Your work ensures forecasts, expansion models, and parcel intelligence move as one integrated system.
Key facts
What you'll do
Orchestrate the Network squad programme, mapping sprints, tracking commitments, and coordinating a ten-person data team.
Build bridges with Sortation, Middle Mile, Last Mile, Routing, Commercial, and Finance to align delivery timelines and data needs.
Drive the squad delivery rhythm, running planning, triage, standups, retros, and cross-functional syncs for forecast accuracy.
Expose risks early, monitoring initiative health and flagging delays, scope gaps, or misaligned expectations across consuming teams.
Clear cross-squad barriers, handling engineering constraints, data access issues, and stakeholder conflicts that threaten delivery.
Partner with four embedded analysts in Routing, Sortation, Middle Mile, and another squad to synchronize priorities and insights.
Maintain stakeholder clarity through concise updates on shipped outcomes, work in progress, and scope changes.
Free the squad lead from operational coordination, enabling focus on model quality, technical strategy, and key relationships.
Requirements
You bring at least five years coordinating programmes in technical settings, managing several workstreams at once.
Experience in data-rich environments helps you discuss model accuracy, forecast windows, and pipeline stability.
You set up tracking systems that show work status and hold teams accountable when progress stalls.
Your history includes collaborating with squads where you lack direct authority yet still move initiatives forward.
Fluency in operations and data concepts lets you translate technical tradeoffs for commercial stakeholders.
Nice to have
None specified.
Skills & tools
None specified.
Practical notes
Hybrid work applies; travel and visa rules are not detailed here.
About the team
Relay is building a centralised data team of around 30 data engineers, analysts, and data scientists. The Network squad sits within this team and serves every operational squad in the business. You will work with the squad lead, the Data Scientists and analysts in the squad, and the leads of the five consuming squads.
The opportunity
Relay's Network squad builds the forecasting engine that powers every operational decision in the business. Demand forecasts drive shift release in sortation. Expansion models determine where the network grows. Parcel intelligence feeds route planning and vehicle loading. When the squad ships a better model, the impact multiplies across five consuming squads, Finance, and ultimately Relay's cost per parcel.
The squad is growing from four people to ten: Data Scientists, Analysts, and a Software Engineer, each contributing to a system that spans demand forecasting, expansion modelling, parcel dimensions, sortation predictions, and demand management. That system has dependencies on Sortation, Middle Mile, Last Mile, Routing, and Commercial - plus Finance, who extend the operational forecasts into longer-range financial projections. It also supports four embedded analysts sitting in other squads across the business.
As Programme Manager for the Network squad, you coordinate the delivery of this system. The role involves taking the squad's roadmap and turning it into a structured programme - tracking commitments, managing cross-squad dependencies, removing blockers, and keeping stakeholders informed. The specifics of the programme will develop as you ramp up and learn how the squad and its consuming teams work together.
The squad lead sets technical direction and manages people. You work alongside them to keep the programme on track, supported by a team that values coordination and wants to deliver well.
Who will thrive in this role
You have at least 5 years of experience in programme management, delivery management, or a similar coordination role, ideally in a technical or data-heavy environment. You have experience managing multiple workstreams.
You have experience working in technical environments even if you are not a data scientist yourself. You can follow a conversation about model accuracy, forecast horizons, and pipeline reliability enough to know when something is blocked, behind, or being under-scoped. The squad will help you build domain knowledge as you ramp up.
You have experience tracking commitments and following up when things stall. You bring structure to how teams track and deliver their work.
You have experience coordinating across teams without direct authority - helping squad members align on outcomes, sharing context, and maintaining momentum even when priorities differ.
About Relay
Relay is building the web3 messenger. We are looking for talented and motivated front-end engineers of all experience levels. Relay engineers thrive in a high-growth, high-velocity environment where success depends on the highest levels of communication, code quality, and pragmatism.