Staff Project Manager, Services - AI/ML

CSQ127R91

As a Staff Technical Project Manager for our AI/ML Professional Services, you will play a pivotal role in delivering first of its kind AI projects that drive customer success and push the boundaries of the Databricks product. This position requires a strategic leader that understands our customers’ business goals, manages stakeholders and escalations, and successfully steers technical AI/ML projects from beginning to end. You will lead projects after a statement of work is agreed upon (i.e. post-sales) and will leverage your technical expertise and project management skills to navigate customer challenges and deliver with excellence at every stage. In this position, you will report directly to senior management of Professional Services (Sr. Manager or higher), working closely with our global ML Practice and broader professional services team.

The impact you will have:

• Customer Success: Take ownership of all phases of project delivery for our largest and most strategic AI/ML Services accounts, ensuring high customer satisfaction, successful project outcomes, and alignment with the account strategy.

• Project Planning: Develop detailed milestone and OKR-based project plans from a statement of work to ensure customer alignment and de-risk projects.

• Project Execution & Risk Management: Drive measurable weekly progress with detailed tracking and by mitigating risks to project objectives, ensuring projects stay on track.

• Stakeholder Management: Facilitate effective meetings across technical and non-technical stakeholders, both internally and externally. This includes Engagement Managers, Account Teams, Resource Managers, Databricks leadership, and customer stakeholders.

• Leadership: Adapt to changing project requirements and priorities, proactively steering projects around challenges and scope changes while collaborating across Professional Services, Engineering, and Sales teams.

• Technical Knowledge: Leverage and expand your understanding of GenAI, Production ML, and Databricks to drive customer outcomes faster.

What we look for:

• Technical knowledge: Deep understanding of the Machine Learning lifecycle, from data ingestion and preparation to model training, evaluation, deployment, and ongoing monitoring (MLOps). 

• Proficiency with cloud-based AI/ML platforms (AWS SageMaker, Google Cloud AI Platform/Vertex AI, or Azure Machine Learning) and their services will be a plus.

• Versatility: Proven ability to excel in fast-paced environments managing multiple customer engagements concurrently.

• Communication: Exceptional verbal and written communication skills; capable of developing organized project trackers and executive presentations; experience engaging with senior stakeholders and leading steering committees. 

• Curiosity: Continuous desire to learn and increase technical knowledge.

• Delivery Methodologies: Experience with industry-standard project management techniques, including agile project delivery; AGILE/PMI certification is highly desirable.

• Global Scope: Extensive experience successfully managing and overseeing global projects with teams of up to 10 people and contract values in excess of $1 million

• Industry Knowledge: Strong background in the big data and analytics industry domain with a focus on GenAI and ML, with a proven ability to quickly learn new technical domains.

• Travel Requirements: Ability to travel up to once a month if/when needed.