Staff Operational Readiness Technical Program Manager, AI Infrastructure Deployment at Nscale, Houston

Staff Operational Readiness Technical Program Manager, AI Infrastructure Deployment at Nscale in Houston. Contract. $190,000 to $300,000 a year. Apply with swipeandhired.

. About Nscale and the Deployment PMO

Nscale builds and operates large-scale AI infrastructure, delivering GPU clusters for leading hyperscalers, AI labs and enterprises across North America, EMEA and APAC.

The Deployment PMO turns signed contracts into live AI infrastructure, coordinating the many teams and partners involved in bringing large GPU clusters online.

About the role

The Deployment TPM owns the last mile of every deployment: the point where a validated cluster becomes a service that Nscale operates and the customer runs on. You make sure nothing reaches the customer or the operations team half-built, undocumented or unsupported.

You track operational readiness for every cluster. That covers the core platform services that operations depends on, the handover package the customer signs, and the formal acceptance process through which the operations team takes the cluster into support. You turn dozens of owners, services and evidence folders into one clear answer: ready to hand off, or not yet, and why.

This is an individual contributor role in the Deployment PMO. Expect to travel up to 50% of the time, primarily to data center sites.

What you’ll do

Drive operational readiness

• Own the operational readiness checklist for each cluster, from network edge and management connectivity through to managed Kubernetes, with a named owner for every service.

• Track bring-up in the right order: network edge and management, core services, cloud platform and storage, secrets management, remaining control planes, then application services.

• Chase the services operations cannot run without: DHCP/PXE, DNS, NTP, zero-touch provisioning, LDAP, TACACS+, PKI, secrets management, asset systems, artifact and OS image mirrors, fleet management, logging, telemetry and observability.

• Escalate early when a service or owner is blocking readiness, with evidence and a recovery date.

Build the handover package

• Assemble the customer handover document for every cluster: executive summary, scope, available GPU capacity against plan, metadata, roles and contacts, solution and network overview, and bill of materials.

• Make capacity unambiguous: planned GPUs, GPUs available at handover, GPUs excluded and why, and open remediation tickets.

• Map every validation test to its evidence folder (health checks, system and network stress, interconnect and multi-node performance, fabric and firmware validation) so the customer can verify results without asking.

• Record every deviation, known issue and residual risk as an open item with an owner and a date. Nothing is accepted silently.

Run the operations acceptance process

• Lead the formal acceptance process so the operations team accepts each cluster with full knowledge of what it is taking on.

• Confirm support paths are live before handoff: ticket routing, hardware returns and triage, log and diagnostic collection, spares and escalation contacts.

• Make sure the operations team understands the customer’s contractual hardware-failure terms, including repair windows and credit triggers, before the support clock starts.

Close out and improve

• Brief the customer and leadership on handoff readiness, with an honest view of risk to the handoff date.

• Track open items after handoff until they are closed, and confirm the post-handoff support period ends on time.

• Turn every handoff into a better template: feed lessons into the handover document, the readiness checklist and the acceptance process.

What success looks like in your first 6–12 months

• Every cluster has an operational readiness checklist with a named owner per service, reviewed weekly.

• Every handoff ships with a complete handover package, and the customer signs off without rework.

• The operations team formally accepts every cluster, with no surprise gaps after handoff.

• Open items at handoff are tracked to closure, and the post-handoff support period ends on time.

• The handover template and acceptance checklist are reused on every new cluster and get faster each time.

What you bring

• 10+ years in infrastructure operations, SRE, service transition or technical program management for large-scale data center or cloud platforms.

• Hands-on experience moving new infrastructure into production support, including runbooks, ticketing, escalation and hardware returns.

• Working knowledge of data center and cloud control-plane services: DHCP/PXE, DNS, NTP, PKI, secrets management, identity and access, observability, and asset systems such as NetBox.

• Familiarity with GPU cluster validation evidence and how it maps to customer acceptance.

• Strength in coordinating many owners across engineering, SRE, networking and operations to a firm date.

• Clear, concise writing. You produce documents customers sign without rewriting.

• Ability to travel up to 50% of the time, primarily to data center sites.

How you work

• Rigorous: A service is ready when it is proven, not when someone says so. Every claim in the handover package has evidence behind it.

• Bold: You call a cluster not ready to hand off when it isn’t, even close to the date, and you put a path to ready next to it.

• Assertive with partners: You hold service owners and partner teams to their commitments. You escalate early, directly and with evidence.

• Accountable: You own the handoff outcome. Rather than “waiting on the service owner,” you explain what you are doing about it.

• Steady under pressure: You keep the last mile moving when open items stack up and the handoff date is close.

• Customer-minded: You think about what the operations team and the customer will need on day one, and make sure it is there.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience handing over NVIDIA GB200/GB300 or Vera Rubin NVL72-class clusters to hyperscaler or AI lab customers.

• Experience with OpenStack, Ceph, Kubernetes, Vault or similar platform services in production.

• Background in ITIL service transition or an equivalent operational acceptance process.

• Experience with contractual SLAs for hardware failure, repair and service credits.

• Experience building automation for readiness tracking and handover reporting.

The range below reflects the base salary for the position. Actual compensation may vary based on job-related factors such as skill set, experience, education, and location. In addition to base salary, this role may be eligible for bonus, equity, and/or commission programs. Nscale may offer a competitive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, flexible paid time off, parental leave, and retirement plan participation.

Salary Range
$190,000 — $300,000 USD

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