Onsite Technical Program Manager — Data Center Deployment (APAC)

Job description

**Location:** Onsite at active construction/deployment sites (multiple regions) **Travel:** Mandatory — frequent site visits during construction; extended onsite presence during active deployment phases **About the Role** - We’re looking for a Doer — someone who lives and breathes the site. This role sits at the center of our GPU cluster deployments: bootstrapping clusters, using low-level designs (LLDs) as the reference to check that cabling and fit-out are going to plan on the floor, and unblocking whatever stands between the plan and a working, delivered site. - You’ll carry technical credibility into design and readiness reviews, hold the line when trade-offs need to be made between engineering, operations, and the customer, and be the person senior stakeholders trust when a deployment is going sideways. You’re warm and approachable on the floor, but authoritative when it counts — the kind of person trade vendors and engineers genuinely want to work with. - This is not a desk job. You’ll be on the ground through construction and practically living onsite during active deployment. **What You’ll Do** **On the floor** - Own cluster bootstrapping, cabling, and fit-out execution from the ground up - Use the LLDs as the reference point to check on the floor whether cabling and fit-out are going to plan — not to author or revise the design - Know every blocker on the floor — and know how to clear it to protect the timeline - Visit sites frequently during construction; be present onsite through active deployment - Build relationships with trade vendors and engineering teams grounded in trust and follow through **Technical judgment and credibility** - Anticipate repeating technical failure modes across sites and regions, and drive fixes before they recur - Facilitate technical trade-off decisions between engineering, operations, and customers, and document the rationale - Bring credible technical input to readiness reviews, grounded in what’s actually happening on the floor - Influence and solve technical challenges of moderate difficulty independently **Program and risk management** - Anticipate programme-level risks — contractual gaps, dependency chains, capacity conflicts — before they materialize - Run portfolio-level schedule and risk management across concurrent deployments - Identify cross-programme risk patterns and drive systemic fixes, not just local fixes - Create clarity across multiple deployments simultaneously — others should be able to operate within the structures you set **Stakeholder and executive communication** - Be the person senior customers and partners trust when delivery is going wrong: composed, credible, and honest under pressure - Handle politically sensitive situations — vendor underperformance, customer escalations — with sound judgement - Translate deployment complexity into decision-ready executive narratives - Deliver leadership reporting that is decision-ready: what’s at risk, what’s needed, and by when **Process and people** - Drive process and tooling improvements across a portfolio or region - Deliberately balance standardisation against programme-specific needs - Develop TPM talent across programmes — stretch strong performers and address underperformance directly - Train up the next generation of onsite talent; deliver through the people you’ve grown, not just your own output **Who Thrives in This Role** - Doers. You don’t manage the site from a dashboard — you’re on the floor. - Warm, compassionate, yet authoritative. People follow you because they trust you, not because of your title. - Trusted under pressure. When a delivery is going wrong, you’re the calm, honest voice in the room. - Builders of people. You grow talent around you and take real satisfaction in their success. - Comfortable with ambiguity at scale. You can hold multiple concurrent deployments in your head at once and still see the patterns across them. **Requirements** - Proven experience as an onsite Technical Program Manager, deployment lead, or equivalent role in data center construction, cluster bootstrapping, or large-scale infrastructure rollout - Hands-on knowledge of reading and applying LLDs, plus cabling and fit-out processes, to verify onsite work against plan - Track record of managing multiple concurrent, complex deployments - Demonstrated ability to bring real technical credibility to readiness reviews - Experience managing vendor relationships and resolving underperformance - Strong executive communication skills — able to turn technical complexity into clear, decision-ready narratives - Willingness and ability to travel extensively and be onsite for extended periods during active deployment phases *Travel is mandatory for this role.* *For information on how Nscale handles candidate personal data, please see our Employee & Candidate Privacy Notice: [Here.](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QK5Yg04WHD9K9IAtJgQWubJZC9oLvatK/view?usp=sharing)*