Implementation Project Lead
ABOUT TERN
Tern is a venture-backed software company on a mission to reshape the $127B travel agency industry—by giving power back to the entrepreneurs who built it.
Nearly 98% of travel agencies are small businesses. These businesses have been chronically underserved by technology. We’re here to change that. Our platform helps travel advisors run more efficient, professional, and profitable operations—giving them the modern infrastructure they need to lead the next chapter of travel.
But the impact goes beyond business. Travel advisors help clients move more intentionally through the world. When a traveler works with an advisor, they're more likely to avoid overtouristed hotspots and more likely to spend their dollars in places where they can do real good. That’s the kind of travel we want more of.
At Tern, we believe in small business. We believe in the power of travel. And we’re building the future of both.
Implementation Project Lead
Tern is looking for an Implementation Project Lead to own the end-to-end onboarding and data migration experience for mid-size travel agencies joining the platform.
This is a highly customer-facing, execution-heavy role. You will be the primary point of contact for agencies during implementation—responsible for keeping projects moving, holding customers accountable to timelines, unblocking issues, and coordinating internally to ensure a smooth, successful go-live.
You’ll run multiple implementations at once, manage detailed project plans, communicate constantly with customers via email and live calls, and partner closely with Engineering, Data, Support, and Sales to get agencies live quickly and confidently.
If you love project ownership, customer interaction, and making complex processes feel calm and organized, this role is for you.
What You’ll Do
Implementation Process & Delivery
Manage the implementation lifecycle: Kick-off. Account setup & Onboarding → Data Migration → Account Provisioning → Launch & Enablement
Maintain detailed project plans, milestone trackers, and project management tools (e.g., Linear) across multiple concurrent agency projects to proactively move customers forward
Drive regular status updates and cadence, both internally and externally, to ensure quality results and readiness for go-live
Customer-facing Execution
Serve as the primary, trusted contact for agencies throughout implementation and build strong working relationships with agency owners and operators
Lead kickoff calls, progress check-ins, and go-live planning calls
Hold customers accountable to deadlines; persuade and nudge when work stalls and escalate appropriately when timelines are threatened
Lead trainings and walk-throughs; answer product questions and coach customers on best practices to ensure adoption
Data & Technical coordination
Own data migration deliveries: mapping, CSV templates, imports (contacts, bookings/trips, payments, commissions), and post-migration QA
Coordinate with Data & Engineering on account provisioning, production transfers, data fixes, and migration automation
Be comfortable reviewing sample CSVs, understanding common data errors (duplication, mapping mismatches, missing fields), and working with technical teammates to resolve them
Work with Support and Product to answer customer questions and surface recurring issues, bugs, or blockers clearly and effectively
Product Enablement & Training
Become deeply familiar with Tern’s product and core workflows and answer foundational product questions during implementation
Run basic trainings or walkthroughs as needed to help agencies confidently go live with the right best practices, resources, and tools to support them
Process Improvement
Identify patterns, bottlenecks, and gaps in the implementation process
Help improve templates, documentation, and internal workflows
Provide feedback to Product and Engineering based on real customer experience to influence the roadmap
What We’re Looking For
Implementation & project management: Experience running end-to-end SaaS implementations, onboarding, or professional services engagements (data migrations required). You’ve owned project plans for multiple concurrent customers.
Expert multitasker: You can balance dozens of moving parts, prioritize across competing demands, and still deliver a high-quality onboarding experience
Customer-facing relationship builder: You’re the main point of contact during implementation and build trust quickly. You hold customers accountable, nudge effectively, and escalate when timelines or quality are at risk
Strong communicator & facilitator: You explain complex technical and operational concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences and can translate those learnings to customers and internal teams
Data-savvy & technically fluent: Comfortable with data migration work—CSV/Excel templates, mapping, QA, and common data edge cases (duplicates, missing fields, mapping mismatches). You can partner closely with engineering and data teams, read basic logs or reports, and communicate technical impact to customers
Product enablement mindset: You enjoy learning product surface area quickly and coaching customers on best practices. You can run product walkthroughs, answer rudimentary product questions, and create simple enablement materials
Startup mentality: Resourceful, bias for action, comfortable with ambiguity, and excited to help shape scalable onboarding processes and playbooks as we grow
Bonus Points
Experience working with agencies (travel or otherwise), SMB/mid-market services businesses, or advisor/agent networks
Hands-on experience with data migrations and import automation (ETL, ingestion pipelines, or scripting for bulk imports)
Familiarity with project management tooling (e.g., Linear, Notion)
Comfortable with analytics and reporting workflows (Excel/Google Sheets at scale, CSV handling, basic SQL or BI experience)
WHAT WE VALUE @ TERN
🌱 We’re always leveling up.
Whether you’re deepening your craft, learning from a teammate, or embracing a new challenge, growth is core to our identity.
🧭 We act with optimistic agency.
We take initiative, seek clarity, and move forward, even when the path isn't obvious. Through every peak and valley, we lead with curiosity, laughter, kindness, and resolve.
💪 We expect operational excellence.
We ship value to our users every single week. We believe that compounding habits lead to sustainable productivity, consistency, and mutual trust.
Operating Principles:
👂 We deeply understand our users.
At every level of the organization, we obsess about understanding those we serve and the industry we operate in.
➕ We embrace the power of and, and not now.
We challenge trade-offs by asking better questions. We break hard problems into small pieces and tackle them with intention. We also know to make the hard call to say “not right now”.
📣 We speak up and move forward.
Everyone at Tern has a voice and a responsibility to use it. We invite healthy tension, share dissenting views early, and challenge each other with curiosity, not ego.
🏃♀️➡️ We move fast and sweat the details.
Velocity matters and relentless progress beats perfection every time. But speed isn’t chaos: we stay aligned, own our outcomes, and care deeply about quality.
🤣 We take the work seriously, but not ourselves.
We hire kind, driven people who elevate the room. If you’ve got a big ego or take yourself too seriously, you won’t last.
WHY JOIN TERN?
Be part of a mission-driven team transforming the travel planning space
Work with a supportive, curious, and creative team
Influence and shape our user success strategy from the ground up
Competitive salary, equity, and benefits package
Tern is committed to building a team that represents people from many different backgrounds and life experiences, reflecting our worldview coinciding with the users and customers we serve across the world. We prefer that you apply, so think of our postings as the start of the conversation. Take the chance — you may be a wonderful add to our Tern team, even if you don’t fully match every requirement on the job description.