Delivery Manager

Our new partner, an American company already established in Prishtina, has entrusted Talent Network Kosova with building and completing its software development team in Kosovo.

As part of this exciting collaboration, we are looking for an experienced Delivery Manager who is eager to build something from the ground up. Currently, the company's software development activities are managed by a small team in the United States, working closely together. Expanding the development team in Kosovo requires establishing an effective way of working across different time zones, and the Delivery Manager will play a key role in making this happen. Working closely with the Senior Software Engineer in the United States, the selected candidate will be responsible for defining development processes from scratch, supporting the recruitment of software developers, and managing the Kosovo team's daily operations. The U.S. engineering team will define project scopes in collaboration with the business and hand them over to the Kosovo team. From that point, the Delivery Manager and the local team will take full responsibility for design, development, testing, and delivering a working build in the development environment, before returning it to the U.S. team for final code review and production release. This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced professional who wants to take ownership of building a development team, establishing processes, and contributing to the company's long-term growth in Kosovo. The position reports directly to the Senior Software Engineer in the United States and operates within a SOC 2 Type II compliant environment.

Responsibilities

• Process Design: Work with the U.S. Senior Software Engineer to design, document, and launch the team's delivery process from scratch: handoff, planning, estimating, development, testing, code review, and release.
• Project Handoff: Receive scoped projects from the U.S. team, make sure the requirements are clearly understood, and raise gaps or questions before work begins.
• Planning and Estimates: Break projects into tasks and agree on time estimates with the U.S. team, then track estimated against actual time so planning improves over time.
• Team Ownership: Assign and coordinate the work of the Kosovo developers, keep them unblocked, and own each project through to a tested, working build ready for U.S. review.
• Quality and Testing: Build a quality practice within the team, including peer code review and testing, with the goal of automated testing over time, so work arrives in the United States ready for final review.
• Rework Reduction: Minimize back-and-forth between Kosovo and the U.S. team by tracking how often work is returned for rework, finding the causes, and fixing them at the source.
• Performance and Coaching: Set clear expectations for each developer, give regular feedback and coaching, and address performance issues early and directly.
• Visibility and Reporting: Maintain clear, current status on all work and report on delivery against estimates, so progress can be reviewed at a glance from the United States.
• Communication: Run regular check-ins with the U.S. team, write clear updates, and document decisions so nothing depends on memory or a single conversation.
• Risk and Escalation: Raise scope, risk, and timeline concerns early, paired with a recommended course of action rather than the problem alone.
• Hiring: Help source, interview, and evaluate developers for the Kosovo team, including first-round technical evaluation, and get new hires productive quickly.
• Continuous Improvement: Challenge and improve the process as the team grows, and bring recommendations to U.S. leadership on what is and is not working.
• Compliance: Follow and help enforce change management and documentation practices consistent with a SOC 2 Type II environment.
• work U.S. business hours for the first 30 days: Start ahead of the development team and work U.S. business hours for the first 30 days, alongside the company's U.S. engineers, to learn its applications and build the process together. Travel to the company's headquarters in Gilbert, Arizona, may be part of this period.

Success Looks Like

• Within 30 days: An initial documented delivery process agreed with the U.S. team, ready to be tested and refined as developers onboard.
• Within 60 days: The first developer hired and onboarded into that process.
• Within 6 months: The team delivering steadily against estimates, with measurable improvement each month.

Skill Requirements

• 5+ years of combined experience, including 2+ years of hands-on software development and 3+ years managing software delivery as a project manager, delivery lead, or technical lead.
• Hands-on technical background: able to understand requirements, read code, follow technical discussions, and judge whether an estimate is realistic.
• Demonstrated experience defining or significantly improving a software delivery process, not only following one.
• Experience working with remote or distributed teams, ideally with clients or colleagues in the United States or Western Europe.
• Working knowledge of task tracking tools (such as Jira, Azure DevOps, or similar), Git, and code review workflows.
• Experience with testing practices and quality assurance in a development team.
• Strong organizational skills and the ability to hold a team to committed timelines.
• Clear, confident communication, with the judgment to know what needs to be escalated and what can be decided and documented.
• English proficiency at C1 level or higher, written and verbal.

Preferred

• Familiarity with PHP and MySQL web applications.
• Experience building or standing up a development team from a small base.
• Experience at a software development agency or outsourcing firm delivering for U.S. or Western European clients.
• Experience with automated testing tools such as Cypress, or AI-assisted development and code review tools.
• Experience in an audited control environment such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001.

The company offers a flexible hybrid work schedule, with three days in the office and two days working remotely. During the first 30 days, the company would like as much overlap with the U.S. team as possible to build the delivery process together with the U.S. Senior Software Engineer. After this initial period, working hours from 11 AM to 7 PM are preferred, although 9 AM to 5 PM is also acceptable. The company is open to discussing other arrangements once the team is fully operational. Some in-office presence is important to support collaboration and build a strong company culture within the Kosovo team.