Job Description
Technical Project Manager — Data, Cloud & AI Engagements Location: Chennai, India (Hybrid) Experience: 8+ years Reports to: Director of Engineering Team: Delivery / Engineering About SquareShift SquareShift is a boutique consulting firm specializing in cloud modernization, data engineering, AI/ML, and observability. We are a Google Cloud Premier Partner, Looker Delivery-Verified Partner, and Elastic SI/Reseller Partner, with deep expertise in BigQuery, Vertex AI, Looker, and Elasticsearch. We deliver enterprise-grade work without the enterprise overhead — selective, expert-led, and senior-staffed end to end. We work with ISVs, SaaS companies, and enterprises across financial services, retail, insurance, and e-commerce. Our engagements span Snowflake-to-BigQuery migrations, Tableau-to-Looker modernizations, agentic AI products, and large-scale observability rollouts. The Role We are looking for a Technical Project Manager who started their career in technology — engineering, QA, technical support, BA, or similar — and pivoted into project management. You are technically literate. You can sit through an architecture review and follow the conversation. But your strength is delivery, not code, and you have built your career on running teams and shipping outcomes. This is a deeply client-facing role. You will be the face of SquareShift to multiple clients at once — running steering committees, leading status calls, walking senior client stakeholders through progress and decisions, and handling escalations directly. Strong written and spoken communication, executive presence, and the ability to build trust quickly with senior client stakeholders are non-negotiable. You will run 4–6 concurrent engagements at different phases — one in discovery, two mid-build, one ramping down — and you need to context-switch cleanly between them. Each client will feel like you are giving them your full attention. Juggling parallel engagements without dropping balls is the core operational skill of this role. Our engagements are technical — data pipelines, cloud architectures, AI/ML systems, observability platforms. You do not need to design or build these. You need to understand the broad shape of what is being built, ask sensible questions, translate between engineering and the client, and partner closely with your tech leads who carry the technical depth. We are a boutique. You will have ownership, autonomy, and impact from week one. What You Will Do - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Own the client relationship across 4–6 concurrent engagements — you are the primary point of contact, the escalation path, and the trusted advisor on the ground Run client governance for each engagement — weekly status, monthly steering committees, executive updates, escalations, and change requests — and keep all of them on track simultaneously Build executive presence with senior client stakeholders (Directors, VPs, CTOs) and represent SquareShift in the room with credibility and clarity Context-switch cleanly across multiple engagements at different phases — discovery, build, stabilization, ramp-down — without losing thread on any of them Run delivery governance across all your engagements — sprint planning, milestone reviews, demos, retros — and ensure each team has the cadence it needs Maintain a broad, high-level understanding of what each team is building, enough to translate progress and risks to non-technical client stakeholders Partner with tech leads on scoping and estimation — your job is to ask the right questions, surface assumptions, and ensure delivery risks are visible; technical judgment stays with the leads Maintain a single, current view of all your projects — plans, RAID logs, resource forecasts, financial health — so you can answer any leadership question on any engagement at any time Flag scope creep early and manage change orders cleanly with the client Drive Agile and hybrid delivery models (Scrum, Kanban, milestone-based) — pick the right tool for each engagement, not dogma Track financial health across your portfolio — burn, margin, utilization — and partner with leadership on commercial decisions Lead pre-sales support on selected opportunities — discovery questionnaires, proposal walk-throughs, SOW reviews (effort estimation done with tech leads) Coach delivery leads on PM rigor; raise the bar on documentation, communication, and predictability Improve internal delivery playbooks and governance templates as the firm scales What We Are Looking For Must-have - - - - - - - - - - 8+ years total experience in IT/technology delivery, with an early-career foundation in a technical role (engineering, QA, technical support, business analysis, or similar) before transitioning into project management 3+ years in a directly client-facing PM, TPM, or delivery lead role at a consulting firm, GSI, or product company with a services arm — you have personally owned senior client relationships, not just supported them Proven track record running multiple parallel engagements (3+ at a time) with distinct clients, timelines, and tech stacks — and the operating habits to keep them all on track Strong executive presence and stakeholder management skills — comfortable presenting to and pushing back on Directors, VPs, and CTOs on scope, timeline, and commercial topics Broad technical literacy — you can follow a high-level conversation about cloud, data, or AI systems, ask sensible questions, and translate between engineering and business; you do not need to be hands-on Strong command of delivery methodologies — Agile/Scrum, Kanban, milestone/waterfall — and the judgment to know when to use which Excellent written and verbal communication in English — you can write a crisp status update, run a steering committee, lead a difficult escalation call, and de-escalate a tense client conversation Process-driven mindset balanced with startup pragmatism — you build structure where it is missing, but you do not let process become the work Result-oriented — you measure success by what shipped and what the client got, not by tickets closed Comfort with project tooling (Jira, Confluence, Asana, Notion) and reporting tools (Looker, Sheets, Excel) Strongly preferred - - - - - Exposure to GCP, BigQuery, Looker, Snowflake, Databricks, or Elasticsearch in past delivery roles Experience delivering data platform, BI migration, or AI/ML engagements Experience managing fixed-price and T&M engagements, including commercial governance and change orders PMP, PRINCE2, CSM, or SAFe certification Pre-sales / solution-shaping experience Who You Are - - - - - - - - - You started your career in technology and never lost your curiosity for it — but you found your strength in running teams and delivering outcomes, not in writing code You are at your best in front of clients. You build trust fast, communicate with clarity, and stay composed when the conversation gets difficult You can hold five engagements in your head at once without dropping context — each client feels like they have your full attention You partner closely with tech leads — you trust their technical judgment, you ask sharp questions, and you make sure delivery risks get surfaced early You bring calm to chaos; when a project is on fire, you are the person clients and engineers both want in the room You write well — your status updates are read because they are useful, not because they are mandatory You are direct: you raise risks early, push back on scope creep, and have hard conversations with clients and engineers when needed, with respect You take ownership — you do not wait for a process to exist before you solve a problem You stay curious about the modern data, cloud, and AI landscape we operate in Why SquareShift - - - - - Senior-led firm — you will work with experts, not be the only adult in the room Real ownership from week one — boutique scale, enterprise-grade work Diverse portfolio — data engineering, AI products, cloud migrations, observability — you will not get bored Direct exposure to leadership and clients — your work is visible and impactful Active investment in AI tooling and ways of working — we use Claude Code, Gemini, and modern delivery tooling across the firm
