Senior Program Manager, Trade

The Opportunity:

TRUECar is building TRUECar Trade, a new business line that helps people sell or trade in their car at a fair, transparent price. We're hiring a Senior Program Manager to run the operating system for this team. Reporting to the SVP of Trade, you'll own the program plan, the gates that decide when we scale, and the weekly rhythm that keeps Product, Engineering, Operations, Dealer Sales, Legal, Finance and Analytics working on the same priorities. You'll also set up an agentic team to track status, prepare readouts, audit and flag risks, so the people on the team can spend their time on building and decisioning.

How you'll drive TRUECar's success:

• Own the integrated program plan for TRUECar Trade across its three build priorities, in order: vehicle condition capture, the dealer buyer network, and a frictionless transaction.
• Run pilot launches in new markets from readiness checklist through go-live, including dealer onboarding, operations staffing, support coverage and launch-day coordination.
• Manage the stage gates that decide when Trade expands: define exit criteria with Finance and the Exec committee, track progress against them weekly, and prepare the evidence for each gate review.
• Run the weekly operating rhythm, including status reviews, the KPI scorecard, and executive readouts that say where we are, what changed and what we need.
• Keep the decision log and the RAID register (risks, assumptions, issues, dependencies) current, with a named owner and due date on every open item, and escalate early when a date or a metric is at risk.
• Coordinate Trade's dependencies on shared teams, including Engineering, Data Science, Dealer Sales, Marketing, Support, Legal and Finance, and on partners such as lenders, credit unions, affinity organizations and logistics providers.
• Partner with Legal and Compliance to setup and operate in conjunction with the requirements.
• Build and manage agentic workforce to supplement and accelerate all work functions of the teams.
• Build and maintain the program dashboard so anyone on the team can see milestones, owners, health and outcomes without asking.
• Measure outcomes over activity: tie every workstream to a metric, and report results after each launch.
• Find gaps in process, tooling or staffing as the business grows and propose efficient solutions to increase speed and achievement.

Your Expertise:

• 4+ years of progressively responsible program or project management experience, including at least one zero-to-one launch of a new product, business line or marketplace.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional programs that span technology, operations and commercial teams, with executive stakeholders.
• Track record of setting up operating cadences, stage gates and KPI scorecards that leaders use to make decisions.
• Demonstrated experience using AI tools (such as Claude) to accelerate planning, analysis, drafting and status reporting, and experience building or running AI agents or automated workflows that a team relies on.
• Effective written and verbal communication with all levels of the organization, including one-page readouts that lead with the answer.
• Strong analytical skills, and comfort building trackers and dashboards and pulling your own data.
• Comfort with ambiguity and a startup pace: you can make a plan with incomplete information, keep it current, and change it when the facts change.
• Strong capability in TRUECar preferred tools and productivity suites (Google Workspace, Asana, Tableau, Claude, etc.).
• Up to 20% travel, including pilot market launches.
• Automotive industry experience strongly preferred, especially in remarketing, wholesale, used-vehicle acquisition, dealer operations or automotive marketplaces.
• Bonus: working familiarity with SQL or Amplitude; PMP, PgMP or Agile certification; experience with regulated transactions such as vehicle titling, lending or payments.

Who We Are

TRUECar is a leading digital automotive platform that uses technology to help car buyers save time and money through a nationwide network of Certified Dealers. Founded in 2005 by Scott Painter, TRUECar was built on the belief that serving membership and affinity organizations central to the car-buying process, including lenders, insurers, and dealers, enables a more valuable auto-buying experience for new and used vehicles. As part of its platform, TRUECar powers auto-buying programs for over 250 leading brands, including Sam's Club, AAA, and more than 100 credit unions.

We are seeking talented individuals who are energized by our commitment to save consumers time and money. We’ve stripped away typical corporate "bloat" to build a culture rooted in high performance and accountability for results. As a member of the TRUECar Crew, you can have a real & direct impact on our success as we continue to evolve the car buying experience.  If this energizes you, apply today!

Your TRUECar Experience

At TRUECar, we offer our Crew members the flexibility to split their work time between home and the office.  While many days are remote, we expect our Crew to show up for the moments that matter—gathering in person when a project needs that extra collaborative spark because nothing replaces the energy of solving big problems in the same room.  We provide you with comfortable shared workspaces in our Santa Monica headquarters office and other regional locations and equip you with a professional home office setup along with monthly reimbursements for your essentials, like phone and internet.

As a TRUECar Crew member, you will receive excellent benefits and perks that include, but are not limited to, 100% employer-paid health, vision, and dental premiums; a 401(k) plan with company contributions; a wellness reimbursement account; and learning & development reimbursement opportunities. We also understand the importance of recharging, so we offer flexible PTO for exempt TRUECar Crew Members and a generous PTO accrual policy for non-exempt TRUECar Crew Members, in addition to 14 company-paid holidays and 2 floating holidays. In short, we care deeply about our Crew Members and have designed employee-centric programs that reflect this.

At TRUECar, we believe in the power of diversity to create a deeper understanding of our consumers and partners, driving innovation in our products. We welcome a workforce that reflects the diversity of car-buying consumers and encourage everyone interested in our mission to apply. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records in accordance with applicable law. Additionally, TRUECar will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.

TRUECar does not accept unsolicited agency submissions.

If you are based in California, we encourage you to read this important information for California residents, linked here.