Operations Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering

C3.ai•Redwood City, CA

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

C3 AI is seeking an Operations Manager to manage the operational backbone of its professional services organization and build/maintain the technical infrastructure for scalable delivery. This hybrid role involves classic services operations (staffing, forecasting, utilization, delivery cadence) and hands-on technical work building and managing AI agents and supporting applications. The role is internal-facing, focused on building systems and tooling for the delivery organization. It requires experience in operations for a technical organization, understanding of services business drivers (staffing, margin), and comfort with coding, configuring agents, and implementing internal tools.

Requirements

5+ years in an operations, business operations, or technical program management role within a professional services, consulting, or forward-deployed engineering organization
Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, or related field of study
Demonstrated ability to write production-quality code (Python and/or JavaScript) — this is not a "manage the roadmap" role, it's a build-and-run role
Direct experience building or configuring AI agents or LLM-based tools (prompt design, tool/function calling, agent orchestration frameworks, MCP or similar protocols)
Fluency with core ops mechanics: staffing models, utilization tracking, forecasting, and margin analysis
Experience owning a dashboard, reporting tool, or internal application from build through maintenance
Strong SQL or data-manipulation skills for building and validating operational reporting
Cross-functional communication skills — comfortable presenting to both engineers and executives

Nice To Haves

Experience in a forward-deployed engineering, solutions engineering, or implementation consulting environment is a plus
Familiarity with services-industry benchmarking (utilization targets, delivery velocity metrics, pilot-to-production conversion) is a plus
Experience with enterprise SaaS platforms, low-code tooling, or workflow automation platforms is a plus
Background in change management or org design work is a plus

Responsibilities

Run the operating cadence for the services org: staffing plans, forecasting, capacity planning, and actuals reconciliation against budget
Own the resourcing process — matching engineers and consultants to engagements based on skill, availability, and account priority
Track and report on delivery health across the portfolio: signature-to-first-value timelines, pilot-to-production conversion, margin by engagement, and overinvestment/overrun flags
Build and maintain dashboards and reporting that give leadership real-time visibility into where engagements stand
Manage the escalation process for at-risk engagements, coordinating between delivery teams, account leads, and executive sponsors
Own vendor and subcontractor management where services work is augmented externally
Drive planning cycles (quarterly and annual) — operating plans, headcount models, and org-level capacity math
Design, build, and maintain AI agents that automate internal delivery workflows (e.g., status reporting, staffing recommendations, account health scoring, proposal generation)
Manage the lifecycle of internal applications used by the delivery org — from requirements through deployment and ongoing maintenance
Evaluate and integrate tooling (MCP servers, internal APIs, third-party connectors) to extend what agents can do across the delivery workflow
Own uptime, reliability, and iteration for any agent or application you build — this isn't a one-time build, it's a maintained product
Partner with engineering to determine what should be built in-house versus adopted from existing platform capabilities
Prototype quickly (React, Python, low-code where appropriate) to validate ideas before committing engineering resources
Act as the connective tissue between delivery leadership, engineering, and finance — translating operational needs into technical requirements and vice versa
Partner with delivery leads to identify where manual, repeatable work can be automated
Support org design and process changes (restructuring, role definition, delivery principle documentation) with data and tooling
Train delivery staff on new tools and agents as they're rolled out