Director of Technical Program Management, Logical Deployment

Nscale•San Francisco, CA

About The Position

The Director of Logical Deployment owns the work that turns powered racks into a working, validated, customer-ready AI cluster. After hardware is energized, the role leads network and software bring-up, including asset and inventory data, bootstrap connectivity, fabric deployment, control plane and fleet bring-up, GPU enrollment, acceptance validation, and handoff to ongoing operations. The Director converts complex engineering dependencies into a predictable, committed sequence and holds engineering, networking, and partner teams accountable to it. The role owns integrated logical schedules for clusters; maintains NetBox asset and inventory data as the source of truth; drives connectivity readiness; coordinates service, control plane, and fleet bring-up; and delivers front-end and back-end network fabrics. It also leads GPU enrollment, fleet manager ingestion and provisioning, customer acceptance validation, defect closure, and documented transition to operations. The Director builds and leads a team of engineering program managers, networking and validation specialists, and tooling and automation leads. The role defines the logical deployment playbook, entry criteria, gates, checklists, and standard timelines; drives automation for bring-up, validation, and reporting; and provides weekly status and risk updates to the VP and senior leadership. Travel is approximately 50% of the time, primarily to data center sites.

Requirements

12 or more years of experience in hyperscale infrastructure, cloud platforms, or large-scale HPC delivery.
At least 5 years of experience leading teams.
Direct experience delivering large GPU or HPC clusters, from network and platform bring-up through validation and customer acceptance.
Strong working knowledge of data center networking, including front-end and back-end fabrics, InfiniBand or RoCE, and out-of-band and management networks.
Strong working knowledge of infrastructure software, including provisioning, control planes, fleet management, and asset systems such as NetBox.
Track record of driving engineering teams not directly managed by the role to firm commitments.
Strength in building integrated schedules and critical paths across many dependencies and recovering schedules when they slip.
Clear, concise executive communication in writing and in person, including honest forecasts.
Ability to travel approximately 50% of the time, primarily to data center sites.
Ability to read fabric designs, bring-up logs, and validation reports and identify problems.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience with NVIDIA GB200/GB300 or Vera Rubin NVL72-class clusters, including NVLink, InfiniBand, or Spectrum-X fabrics.
Experience at a hyperscaler, neocloud, or AI lab bringing clusters with 10,000 or more GPUs into production.
Familiarity with NVIDIA cluster validation and burn-in.
Experience building automation for provisioning, validation, or deployment reporting.
Background in network engineering, SRE, or infrastructure software.

Responsibilities

Own the integrated logical schedule for each cluster, from asset data lock through customer handoff.
Maintain accurate asset and inventory data in NetBox as the source of truth before and throughout bring-up.
Drive readiness for edge connectivity, out-of-band and management networks, and bootstrap connectivity in Nscale and customer environments.
Sequence service, control plane, and fleet bring-up across engineering teams.
Deliver front-end and back-end network fabric deployment with Networking and Build Out teams.
Remove fabric, configuration, and connectivity blockers quickly and escalate schedule threats early.
Own GPU enrollment and validation, along with fleet manager ingestion and provisioning.
Lead customer acceptance validation, close defects with engineering and OEM partners, and prepare clusters for handoff to ongoing operations.
Ensure handoffs include complete documentation, runbooks, and open-issue lists.
Lead, hire, and develop a team of engineering program managers, networking and validation specialists, and tooling and automation leads.
Define the logical deployment playbook, including entry criteria from Physical Deployment, gates, checklists, and standard timelines.
Work with the tooling team to automate bring-up, validation, and status reporting.
Report weekly status and risks to the VP and senior leadership, clearly distinguishing forecast from upside.
Build integrated schedules and critical paths, recover schedules when they slip, and ensure milestones are met or risks are flagged at least two weeks ahead with a recovery plan.
Develop a repeatable acceptance validation standard and help reduce the time from rack energization to customer handoff.