Contract: Senior Producer (project manager / delivery manager)

About Portable

We are Australia's leading innovation partner for public good, developing technology and design solutions that power the public and the people who serve it. We seek out areas of acute social need and work with government agencies, nonprofit organisations, and socially minded businesses to make transformational change.

There are 65+ of us: researchers, strategists, designers, technologists and producers, working from our head office in Collingwood and remotely from co-working spaces and homes across Australia.

About this role

We have an immediate gap in one of our delivery teams and need an experienced contract producer to help us cover it. We're also using this as a chance to build an ongoing pool of contract producers we can call on when the need arises: covering a capacity gap, supporting a team through a busy patch, or adding delivery leadership at short notice.

We're keen to hear from people who can start immediately or relatively soon, as well as people who'd like to be considered for future opportunities.

We use the title "producer" at Portable. If you know this kind of work as project management, delivery management, or delivery leadership, this is the same role: it's about managing scope, budget, timelines, and the people and partners involved in delivering a project, rather than producing film, video, or animation.

The kind of project you join will depend on what's needed at the time. Portable delivers digital products, large-scale website design and development, strategic design and service design work, AI tool development, and a range of other project types (check out portable.com.au for examples of our work).

Then there's you

You're an experienced producer, project manager, or delivery manager with significant experience behind you: typically 8 or more years delivering technology, design or research projects. You've done enough of these engagements to know how to read a new team, client and project quickly.

You're comfortable leading delivery independently: picking up a brief, asking the right questions, and getting moving without waiting to be told what to do next. You’re a problem-solver at heart and can apply your experience to new contexts and project types, even if you haven’t worked with them before. And you're genuinely comfortable with feedback: giving it as well as receiving it, from whoever on the team has something useful to say, because you know that's how good work gets made under pressure.

What you'll bring

• Experience in quickly onboarding into new contexts, environments and tools: you don't need months of ramp-up to be useful, and you're comfortable getting oriented on the job.
• A natural ability to work across diverse teams and stakeholders: you build relationships quickly, adapt your communication style to your audience, and know how to get the best out of people in different contexts.
• The ability to work, and lead work, independently: you're confident picking up a brief and driving it forward with minimal oversight.
• Comfort with feedback, in both directions: you're open to input from anyone on the team, not just people in your exact role, because you're as invested in the quality of the work as we are.
• Significant experience (typically 8 or more years) delivering digital research, design or technology projects, ideally with significant budgets ($500k+).
• Confident stakeholder communication, and the judgement to know when to escalate.
• Comfort managing scope, budget and timelines under real time pressure.
• Experience across agile and waterfall methodologies, and the judgement to know when each is useful.
• Familiarity with common delivery tools (Jira, Asana and similar), and the flexibility to pick up whatever a new team is already using.
• Experience delivering projects for government and/or not-for-profits.

What this can look like

Because this is an ongoing pool rather than one fixed role, the work varies depending on what's needed at the time. You might be:

• Leading delivery on one or more projects end to end, keeping scope, budget and timelines on track.
• Stepping into an existing team partway through a project, and getting up to speed fast.
• Writing or refining a statement of work, tracking assumptions, risks and dependencies.
• Running stand-ups, workshops and client check-ins.
• Coordinating research, design and development inputs so the right work happens at the right time.
• Providing extra delivery leadership or capacity during a busy period or a gap in the team.
• Supporting in identifying, scoping and bidding for new business opportunities.

Engagement details

Engagement length, hours and rate vary depending on what's needed: anywhere from a short burst of support to a few months of work. We're especially keen to hear from people who could start immediately or at short notice, though we also want to hear from people available further down the track.

Preferably you'd be able to work hybrid from our Melbourne or Adelaide office, but we're also open to other remote options within Australia.

How to apply

We're committed to building a diverse and equitable pool of contractors. People from underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to apply.

To be considered, please send us:

1. Your resume.
2. A short cover note answering:
• What attracted you to this opportunity, and why do you think you'd be a good fit?
• Tell us about a time you gave or received some tough feedback in the middle of a project. How did you handle it?