Program Manager, Hacktoberfest

Hacktoberfest is one of the largest open-source celebrations in the world, and our team needs someone to lead it. We're looking for a Program Manager to take this year's Hacktoberfest from where it stands today to a strong finish, coordinating partners, internal stakeholders, and community-facing deliverables on a real deadline. We have the vision, we need someone to execute and push to ensure it happens. 

This is the immediate priority, but it isn't a role that ends when October does. MLH runs roughly 3–5 activation-style programs a year (100 Days of Solana, Roadshows at conferences like Snowflake Summit and GitHub Universe, and similar special programs), and the person in this seat will have the opportunity to carry that same ownership into those initiatives as they come up. We're starting with Hacktoberfest because that's what's in front of us, not because it's the only thing this role is.

We're open to how this is structured. See How This Role Is Structured below.

What You'll Do

• Own Hacktoberfest program management end-to-end this cycle: timeline, milestones, deliverables, and the day-to-day work needed to get the program across the finish line.

• Coordinate closely with our leadership team and other internal stakeholders to keep the program aligned with MLH's broader community and partner goals. Managing up is a must-have skill. 

• Build the operational structure as you go. Parts of this program are still being defined, so you'll be filling gaps and making calls rather than executing an existing playbook line by line.

• Manage relationships and expectations across partners, contributors, and internal teams, flagging risks early and keeping things moving when priorities shift.

• Track progress and report on program health, surfacing what's working, what's not, and what needs a decision from leadership.

• Help shape what comes next. Apply what you learn running Hacktoberfest to how MLH runs similar activation programs going forward, and take on ownership of one or more of those programs directly.

Who You Are

• You have real experience managing programs, campaigns, or complex projects with multiple stakeholders and a hard deadline. That might be a few years in a formal program or project management role, or it might be a track record of being the person who reliably gets cross-functional things done, even earlier in your career.

• You have strong judgment and are comfortable with ambiguity. You don't need a fully built process handed to you. You can build one.

• You're comfortable owning a timeline, pushing people to hit it, and making a call when something needs a decision when there's no clear precedent to follow.

• You communicate clearly and proactively, especially when you're juggling partners, internal teams, and a moving deadline at the same time. 

• Familiarity with developer communities and hacker ecosystems (including MLH and DEV) is a genuine plus. Prior hands-on Hacktoberfest experience is not a requirement. We're looking to bring some fresh thinking to the program, not just preserve how it's always been run.

• You're comfortable using AI tools as part of your everyday workflow. Experience with open-weight models and running local inference is a plus.

We're intentionally not locking this role to a specific seniority level. If you're the right operator, we want to talk, regardless of your years of experience or title history.

How This Role Is Structured

We're being upfront that this one is flexible, on purpose. Depending on who we find, this could take shape as a contract engagement scoped to Hacktoberfest, a contract-to-hire path into a broader role across MLH's activation programs, a part-time or fractional arrangement, a full-time hire, or a one-off project engagement scoped tightly to this cycle.

We don't have a fixed answer to that yet, and that's by design. If you're interested, come talk to us about what structure would work well for you. We'll figure out together what makes sense on both sides, including scope, time commitment, and compensation.