Staff Operational Readiness Technical Program Manager, AI Infrastructure Deployment

Description

The company builds and runs large-scale AI infrastructure, delivering GPU clusters to hyperscalers, AI labs and enterprises in North America, EMEA and APAC.

The Deployment PMO takes signed contracts to live AI infrastructure, coordinating the many teams and partners that bring large GPU clusters online.

This individual contributor role sits in the Deployment PMO and owns the final stage of each deployment, where a validated cluster becomes a service that the operations team runs and the customer uses. Your job is to keep half-built, undocumented or unsupported clusters away from both.

Over the first 6, 12 months, success means every cluster has a readiness checklist with a named owner per service, reviewed weekly, and every handoff ships a complete package that the customer signs without rework.

Responsibilities

• Keep a readiness checklist for each cluster, from network edge and management connectivity through to managed Kubernetes, with a named owner for every service.
• Sequence bring-up: network edge and management first, then core services, cloud platform and storage, secrets management, remaining control planes and finally application services.
• Follow up on the services operations cannot run without, including DHCP/PXE, DNS, NTP, zero-touch provisioning, LDAP, TACACS+, PKI, secrets management, asset systems, artifact and OS image mirrors, fleet management, logging, telemetry and observability.
• Raise blockers early with evidence and a recovery date when a service or owner holds up readiness.
• Write the customer handover document for each cluster: executive summary, scope, GPU capacity available at handover against plan, metadata, roles and contacts, solution and network overview, and bill of materials.
• Show capacity plainly: GPUs planned, GPUs available at handover, GPUs excluded with reasons, and open remediation tickets.
• Link every validation test to its evidence folder, covering health checks, system and network stress, interconnect and multi-node performance, and fabric and firmware validation, so the customer can check results alone.
• Log every deviation, known issue and residual risk as an open item with an owner and a date. Nothing is accepted quietly.
• Lead the formal acceptance process so the operations team takes each cluster knowing exactly what it inherits.
• Confirm support paths work before handoff: ticket routing, hardware returns and triage, log and diagnostic collection, spares and escalation contacts.
• Make sure operations understands the customer's contractual hardware-failure terms, including repair windows and credit triggers, before the support clock starts.
• Brief the customer and leadership on handoff readiness, stating the real risk to the handoff date.
• Track open items after handoff until closed, and confirm the post-handoff support period ends on schedule.
• Feed lessons from each handoff into the handover document, the readiness checklist and the acceptance process.

Requirements

• 10+ years in infrastructure operations, SRE, service transition or technical program management for large-scale data center or cloud platforms.
• Hands-on experience moving new infrastructure into production support, including runbooks, ticketing, escalation and hardware returns.
• Working knowledge of data center and cloud control-plane services such as DHCP/PXE, DNS, NTP, PKI, secrets management, identity and access, observability and asset systems like NetBox.
• Familiarity with GPU cluster validation evidence and how it supports customer acceptance.
• Experience coordinating many owners across engineering, SRE, networking and operations to a firm date.
• Clear, concise writing that customers sign without rewriting.
• Ability to travel up to 50% of the time, mainly to data center sites.
• Rigorous: a service counts as ready only when it is proven, and every claim in the handover package has evidence behind it.
• Bold: you call a cluster not ready when it is not, even close to the date, and you give a path to ready alongside that call.
• Assertive with partners: you hold service owners and partner teams to their commitments and escalate early, directly and with evidence.
• Accountable: you own the handoff outcome and explain what you are doing about a blocker rather than waiting on others.
• Steady under pressure: you keep the last mile moving when open items pile up and the date is close.
• Customer-minded: you plan for what operations and the customer need on day one and make sure it is in place.
• Preferred: experience handing over NVIDIA GB200/GB300 or Vera Rubin NVL72-class clusters to hyperscaler or AI lab customers.
• Preferred: experience with OpenStack, Ceph, Kubernetes, Vault or similar platform services in production.
• Preferred: background in ITIL service transition or an equivalent operational acceptance process.
• Preferred: experience with contractual SLAs for hardware failure, repair and service credits.
• Preferred: experience building automation for readiness tracking and handover reporting.

Conditions

Base salary range: $190,000 - $300,000 USD. Actual pay may vary with skill set, experience, education and location.

The role may also be eligible for bonus, equity and/or commission programs.

The company does not accept unsolicited candidate submissions from recruitment agencies.

Benefits

• Medical, dental and vision coverage.
• Flexible paid time off and parental leave.
• Participation in a retirement plan.
• The package may be supplemented by bonus, equity and/or commission eligibility.