About our client

Our client is seeking a Head for IT Infrastructure & IT Services practice to perform the lead role. The Practice Manager / Leader will be responsible for the company's IT Services Practice. The role requires a very strong appreciation of various IT stacks including Servers, Networks, Security, Data centre as well as SMAC. The Practice Leader will work with sales, delivery, operations, and partners / vendors to address the business, operational and technical requirements of the customers. He / She is required to work and collaborate closely with peers across practices to create leading edge, innovative solutions for the customers which align technology with business. The ideal candidate is expected to be versatile who will handle practice development, pre-sale’s function, customer interactions, technical delivery ownership, willingness to learn emerging technologies and build industry leading solutions. This is a leadership role with the successful candidate comfortable working with customers technically and? commercially to delivery high quality IT Services on time and on budget. The team once set up will have Solution Architects, Presales Consultants, IT engineers and Implementation Consultants across various technologies within the team and extended organization. This position requires exercising independent judgment to perform the responsibilities described herein.

 

Position Details & Responsibilities:

1. Lead client implementation service delivery providing management and oversight of projects involving software and staffing for projects, capacity planning and project profitability.

2. Overall leadership and lead role in managing the implementation projects of software solutions; maintains complete control on project schedule, budget and risk issues; facilitates Billing & AR, timely decisions to maintain project schedule and budget; identify project risks early and assist by providing prudent and timely recommendations for risk avoidance.

3. Sets and manages client expectations; creates and executes project work plans; communicates effectively with clients to identify needs and evaluate alternative business solutions; continually seeks opportunities to increase customer satisfaction and deepen client relationships.

4. Manage day-to-day execution of services operations consisting of time and expense review, project staffing and resource management, utilization reporting and optimization, backlog and pipeline management, revenue reporting, forecasting and collections.

5. Review, Size as required, approve proposals and Statements of Work (SOW’s) to ensure projects are properly scoped, estimated, and priced.

6. Directly supervises implementation consultants, business analysts; conducts employee performance reviews/evaluations and career development discussions; trains and coaches to develop and enhance the performance and skills of team members; participates in the interviewing, selecting, hiring of employees.

7. Oversee and execute process improvements, development of policies, procedures, methodology, and tools in support of delivery. Builds a skills plan with HR and ensures right staffing across technologies in alignment with BU and presales.

8. Responsibilities include supporting pre-sales processes and working with sales, account management, pre-sales professionals to win new business; implementing business proposal review and refinement

9. Establish strategic plans along with business leaders and maintain strong relationships with other delivery units, the sales team, pre-sales team, client and account managers and other business leaders. Provides CMS management with regular project updates; works with the CMS PMO to advance project management best practices, participates in regular reviews with leadership & PMO, serves as a critical advisor to set the direction for the implementation and professional services team, with a special emphasis on how and what we implement.

10. Project management ability to push projects over the finish line with sound planning and persistent execution; will understand how to align resources, seek the input of key constituents, and manage others to achieve desired results.

11. Develops and implements methods and procedures for building budgets, monitoring projects through record keeping, expenditure tracking, periodic progress reports and participating in regular reviews with BU’s, Management and Finance.

12. CMS is a CMM Level 5, ISO 27001, ISO20000 & BIS certified organisation. Maintaining and enhancing these certifications along with other stakeholders is an imperative. Relevant experience is a positive.

 

Key skills and experience

1. Bachelors in an engineering or business discipline

2. 12-15 years’ experience in professional services and implementation delivery

3. At least 7-10 years software development expertise, with at least 5 being in a customer facing technical delivery role.

4. Deep end to end software project delivery experience with a proven, hands-on background. Strong Operational management, project management, consulting, technology, and process improvement skills.

5. Proven ability to develop and deliver Statements of Work for software development projects. Expertise in gathering requirements and documenting user needs. Experience in modelling requirements through User case studies and other means.

6. Full software lifecycle experience in both traditional waterfall and agile development methodologies

7. A deep understanding of the broad tooling used across the SDLC, from design, development, QA, deployment, CI, maintenance etc.

8. A deep understanding of automation, the benefits, risks associated with it and its application to the SDLC

9. A solid understanding of OOP principles. A good understanding of N-tier and N-layered architecture

10. Practical experience of few of the following:

a. Java J2EE or Dot Net software development platforms.

b. Cloud based platforms.

c. Web application design and application frameworks.

d. Front End Skills: Java Script (jQuery, dojo)/CSS/HTML, Single Page Applications (AngularJS, React), Responsive Design

e. Back End Skills: Microservices, REST, JVM (Java - Spring, Spring Boot, Hibernate, etc), NodeJS, Database (Postgres, MySQL, etc); Content/Portals (Alfresco, Liferay)

f. Relational databases and SQL; Database design, creation, manipulation, and query.

g. Linux OS and development tooling as well as open-source libraries.

h. SOA-based Data Integration, Data Governance, Content Management

i. DevOps/Platforms: Ansible, Chef, Jenkins, SpecFlow, Maven, Vagrant, Docker etc.

j. Virtualization platforms like VMWare, Hyper-V, Red Hat KVM Hypervisor and AWS EC2

k. Automation & Security Testing: Selenium, Cucumber, Mercury, Appscan, BurpSuite etc.

l. DB/Data Platforms: Kafka, Storm, MongoDB, Hadoop.

 

Key behavioral attributes

1. Proactive and highly organised, with strong time management and planning skills

2. Able to meet tight deadlines and remain calm under pressure

3. Experience working with key stakeholders at senior levels.

4. Strong Leadership, professional attitude – and leading by example

5. Passionate about Software.

6. Ability to multi-task and stay organised in a dynamic work environment

7. Analytical and inquisitive, with excellent attention to detail

8. Credible, confident, and articulate, with excellent communication and presentation skills and the gravitas to deliver ideas clearly and concisely to internal and external stakeholders

9. Personable and approachable, with an enthusiastic and motivational nature and an overall passion for excellence