Senior Implementation Manager

Company: Scholarly Software

Location: Denver or Seattle metro area

Compensation: $100,000 - $140,000 annual salary, based on experience

About Scholarly

Scholarly is building the next generation of AI-powered software for higher education with a faculty-first focus. As institutions face a wave of digital transformation, our mission is to become the AI-native system of record for faculty data. Our platform unifies fragmented workflows into a single, intelligent system – powering annual reviews, promotion & tenure, appointment tracking, and more – while eliminating manual data entry and improving decision-making for institutions. We’re a mission-driven, product-focused team shaping the future of higher education.

Position Overview

Scholarly is seeking a Senior Implementation Manager to drive complex customer implementations and help shape how we deliver at scale. This is an ideal role for an experienced SaaS implementation leader, former consultant, or senior professional services operator who thrives in ambiguous environments, can bring structure to complex institutional challenges, and wants to have a direct, visible impact at a fast-growing startup.

This role is a mix of hands-on customer delivery, program leadership, and playbook building. You’ll own flagship implementations at large and complex higher ed institutions – partnering with provosts, deans, IT teams, and faculty affairs leaders – while also setting the methodology, templates, and metrics that let the rest of the implementation team scale behind you.

We’re looking for someone who is comfortable switching between a customer-facing executive meeting, a technical integration discussion, and an internal analysis of product adoption metrics.

Key Responsibilities

Customer Implementation & Delivery

• Lead customer implementations from kickoff to go-live, ensuring on-time, high-quality delivery.

• Translate complex institutional needs into actionable requirements, workflows, integrations, and project plans.

• Partner with the Engineering team on data mapping, migration, integrations, and customer account and workflow configuration.

• Oversee testing and cutover activities to ensure smooth system adoption.

• Support training and change management efforts with administrators and faculty.

• Serve as a trusted advisor to provosts, deans, IT teams, and faculty affairs leaders.

• Build and continuously improve the Scholarly implementation playbook – templates, project plans, configuration patterns, training materials, and onboarding standards.

• Define and track the metrics that matter (time-to-go-live, milestone adherence, customer satisfaction, implementation margin) and drive improvements against them.

Internal Collaboration

• Work closely with Engineering on data migration scripts, APIs, and feature configuration.

• Collaborate with Customer Success and Engineering to capture customer feedback and shape the roadmap.

• Partner with Customer Success post-implementation to ensure long-term adoption.

Internal & External Leadership

• Manage stakeholder communications with clarity, confidence, and a bias for action.

• Bring structure to ambiguous challenges, breaking down problems into clear workstreams.

• Act as a bridge between business needs and technical execution.

• As the team grows, mentor junior team members in problem-solving and project management best practices.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required; MBA or other advanced degree a plus.

• 5+ years of experience in management consulting, strategy, or business operations roles.

• Strong project management skills with experience leading complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives.

• Excellent problem-solving and analytical ability; able to build models, map data between different systems, build dashboards, and analyze business cases.

• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; executive presence with senior stakeholders.

• Comfort with technical concepts such as APIs, SSO, and SaaS platforms (not required to be an engineer, but must be fluent in technical discussions).

• Passion for higher education, EdTech, or mission-driven software preferred.

Why Join Scholarly

• Take on a highly visible, cross-functional role that shapes customer outcomes. This role will be critical to the company’s future success.

• Work directly with the founders and senior leadership team.

• $100,000 - $140,000 salary depending on experience.

• Health, dental, and vision insurance.

• Equity in a fast-growing startup.

• Flexible work environment with hybrid options.

• Opportunity to grow into a leadership role as the company scales.