Technical Project Manager

Job Description

Technical Project Manager

You main role is to discuss & review requirements shared by the client, add them into a prioritized backlog (cultivation of product feature pipeline) & pick items from this backlog for further specification up to a level where a Solution Architect can process it further (to develop/implement the feature, or to come back with a possible solution first, as applicable).

Essential Duties And Responsibilities :

• Product Consulting : Regularly interact with existing clients to discuss their products/projects outlook and apply your analytical, technical, product & commercial knowledge to proactively propose useful & valuable ideas that improve the client’s product or solve one of their business problems (also after a specific project has been closed)

Planning and Estimation

• Requirement gathering: Gather requirements from clients about a specific new feature or for a technical problem/bug. The help of a Business Analyst(BA) can be availed in case of larger scopes.

• Functional Analysis: Scrutinize any requirements received from the client by cross-checking for any logical flaws/shortcomings and check for a more efficient alternative idea/solution. Thereafter, flesh out a detailed description or high-level solution for the new feature or technical problem (a technical solution can be provided by involving an Solution Architect (SA)/Team Lead (TL) if needed)

• Estimation and/or SA Analysis: After the functional analysis is done, you request an Estimation of the feature (if needed), else put the item into the Solution Architecture phase. It is your responsibility that the item is fully & correctly understood by the respective Solution Architect.

• Define the software development process flow for the overall project (i.e. whether a staging deployment is needed, whether pre-and/or post-production QA is needed, whether estimations are necessary prior to SA phase, whether an item should be auto-deployed or waiting for a milestone release, etc)

• Identify critical success factors for the project & proactively identify and mitigate risks by taking timely countermeasures.

• Team composition: Pick SA & BA for your project as they may (at times) be client-facing.PDM & SA will be responsible to choose the development team as per the resource plan.

Quality assurance & Delivery

• Conduct Fit-for-Purpose checks on deliverable (after it passed QA) before releasing it to client

• Inform client about the release and schedule the deployment to production

Project retrospectives

• Conduct post-delivery review of a product with learnings and things that have gone well

• Conduct retrospectives every 3 months in case of ongoing projects.

Financials & Billing:

• Handle rate & budget negotiations with clients & prospects while applying your vast know-how about potential engagement models, principles of internal costing and pricing strategies.

• Manage project revenue and prepare P&L for management for the ongoing projects

• Raising regular invoices to clients as per time spent / project progress & manage follow-ups in case of uncleared invoices.

Customer Success Manager & Primary Point of Contact

• You overall act as the primary point of contact for the client for and should be there in every call (as and when the need arises, you may also freely involve a BA, SA, TA, or your seniors).

• Depending on the relationship with the client, the status updates should be shared with the clients, based on the agreed intervals (daily/weekly etc).

• Continuously monitor client satisfaction and secure a constantly high CSAT score

• Proactively anticipate any potential grievances (however small) to instantly mitigate, monitor and escalate accordingly

• Expand the client relationships and the extent of cooperation (e.g. follow-up projects)

• Obtain reviews / recommendations / referrals from the client for successful work done

• Handle any grievance received from a client in a highly structured and professional manner.

Pre-Sales & Client re-activation

Besides managing projects, the Product Manager understands that they play an important role in the project acquisition / lead conversion and client-reactivation due to their professional and self-confident appearance paired with an extensive subject-matter know-how and the unique ability to provide “comfort” to a client by showing him directly who he would be interacting with regularly.

• Liaise with the Business Development (BD) team to acquire projects in your subject matter domain and by jumping on the call to impress the client with your intellect, communication and subject-matter knowledge.

• Reactivation of previous clients with the help of BD team

Short & Mid-term resource planning

• By regularly liaising with the clients, you should always have some kind of 6-month forward looking assumption with regard to the resource planning outlook.

• Actively communicate any anticipated downtime / idle time as far in advance as possible to BD team

Strategic positioning

• The Product manager has an ongoing exposure to external clients and the company’s target market as a whole. This makes the PDM a valuable source to share findings about relevant market shifts/trends or new methodologies to respective focus groups in VT

continuous improvement

• Refine best practices & standard operating procedures and inform seniors & DSIE if applicable

• Refine best practices & standard operating procedures and inform seniors & DSIE if applicable

Team Management

• Handling of team members & attrition rate Maintaining high morale of team members and high employee satisfaction (ESAT) Aligning the team with company vision and strategy Organising team building activities

• Intelligently utilise “small” amounts of idle time of team by assigning meaningful and productive tasks that are very likely to be done in the project. Stretched idle times must be reported to BD/DSIE and may not be used to do advance work (risk mitigation!).

• Helping HR in for the team Appraisal/Hiring/Probation of direct reporting team members

• Helping HR in for the team Appraisal/Hiring/Probation of direct reporting team members

• Proactively inform DSIE team about team Training need

Content Provider

• Presentations on latest technology trends/processes

• Blog Articles/Posts

• Representing and contributing to communities like Stackoverflow, forums, social media etc on behalf of company

Candidate Profile

You are a highly accomplished and dynamic leader with a successful career in managing complex and large software development projects. You live by the highest professional standards (quality, methodology) and enjoy the challenges of working on sophisticated enterprise projects for large renowned multinational clients.

Analytical skills

• You have a very analytical mind combined with a great attention to detail and are able to structure / organize an abundance of information to identify which matters need prioritized attention.

• You are a versed abstract thinker and can thereby deal with problems across technologies/industries without a specific understanding of the programming syntax or industry.

• You are a natural problem solver and able to break down a highly complex technical problem into logical components, cause(s) and effect(s).

• You enjoy complex challenges/projects and it motivates you to be surrounded by super smart individuals.

Technical skills

You possess a solid understanding of the following:

• The last few years spent on technical project management must have a significant share of COMPLEX / SOPHISTICATED long-term projects (e.g. enterprise level), not just MVPs!

• Work with Technical Architect/Lead for projects to define the technical specification for features and unctionalities and also determining the effort associated

• Build / Release (CI/CD, Test Automation, DevOps)

• Agile development experience, ideally Scrum

• Exceptional clarity & speed of thought & problem solving skills

• Exceptional communication skills in English (fluency in written and spoken)

• Mindset that strives for real technical excellence and highest quality & perfection.

• Awareness of major development frameworks

• Software development lifecycle methodologies and best practices (SDLC)

• Project Management tools (e.g. JIRA, Asana, Slack), agile project management methodologies and best practices

Good to have Skills-

• Exposure in handling Ecommerce , Web , Mobile , DevOps, QA or upcoming/ trending technology.

• Development experience / strong knowledge working with Magento, PHP or open source .

• Development experience/ strong knowledge of Object Oriented Programming Concepts, JavaScript, SOAP, XML,HTML and CSS, AJAX, Database technologies like MS-SQL, MySQL will be a plus

• Development experience/ strong knowledge in Software Development / building apps , Android, iOS, Cross Platform .( React Native, Flutter etc )

• Deep knowledge on Headless Architecture .(PWA, SPA).

Product Management skills

You are a creative mind and possess valuable hands-on experience in the management of (client) products with regard to:

• Ideation (creative process of generating, developing, and curating ideas)

• Assisting BA team in creation of sophisticated wireframes / rapid prototypes

• Principles of MVPs, lean development, finding product/market fit

• Launching products and the various involved activities (market research, competitive analysis, funding, legal, hosting, online marketing, pricing, etc) ideally in an entrepreneurial setting would be advantageous.

Business Strategy skills

It is advantageous if you possess a basic understanding of business strategy concepts, including, but not limited to ROI, Porter, PEST, SWOT, Ansoff and BCG Matrix.

Communication & Negotiation skills

• You speak and write outstanding English with a rich vocabulary. (IELTS 6.5+)

• You possess strong presentation skills and know how to engage with an international audience

• You are able to translate technical information clearly to non-technical audiences using non-technical language.

• You are a seasoned negotiator with regard to sophisticated products

Interpersonal, Intercultural & Leadership skills

• You are fully aware of cultural differences among international clients.

• You have experience leading a project team and understand the specific needs of your team members and apply a mix of measures to motivate them personally and collectively.

• You understand how to promote a strong sense of “project ownership” among your team members.

Availability to travel

• You would be available and willing to travel abroad for business meetings and project execution (no more than cumulative 30 days per year)

• You have a valid passport and are fully eligible to travel to the US/Europe/Australia. A previous travel history would be advantageous, but not required.