5+ years in technical program management, hardware NPI, or network engineering with direct ownership of new network hardware production.
Experience at a hyperscaler or major network vendor (e.g., Microsoft, AWS, Google) or comparable large-scale environment.
Hands-on familiarity with hardware qualification processes including lab validation and defect triage.
Strong technical grounding in data center networking technologies such as Ethernet, InfiniBand, and structured cabling.
Proven ability to drive cross-functional teams and vendors to timely decisions under changing conditions.
Excellent communication skills for presenting technical trade-offs to senior leadership.
Willingness to travel to vendor labs and pilot sites as needed.
Responsibilities
Own the NPI program for new networking platforms from vendor selection to deployment.
Build NPI plans with clear phase gates and criteria for each stage.
Drive qualification and validation of networking hardware and systems.
Manage vendor engagement for new products, including roadmap alignment and defect tracking.
Collaborate with Network Architecture to create production-ready reference builds and acceptance test plans.
Lead pilot builds, capturing lessons learned for future designs.
Oversee the handoff to Deployment, ensuring documentation and training are complete.
Track technical and supply risks across product lines and facilitate decision-making.
Benefits
Opportunity to work on cutting-edge networking technologies for GPU clusters.
Collaborative environment with cross-functional teams and industry-leading vendors.
Exposure to large-scale deployment processes and innovative hardware solutions.
Potential for professional growth in a rapidly evolving tech landscape.
Full Job Description
About the Role
We're hiring a Technical Program Manager to lead New Product Introduction (NPI) for networking across Nscale's US GPU cloud. You'll own the path from a new network platform, architecture, or vendor being selected to it being proven, documented, and ready to deploy at scale.
That covers new switch and NIC generations, 800G and next-generation optics, new cluster fabric designs, and new data center and WAN reference architectures. You'll work closely with Network Architecture and Engineering, Hardware Engineering, Supply Chain, vendors, and our Deployment organization, which takes what you qualify and builds it across our sites. The role involves some travel to vendor labs and US pilot sites. What You'll be Doing
Own the NPI program for new networking platforms, from vendor selection and early samples through lab qualification, pilot build, and release to Deployment.
Build NPI plans with clear phase gates (EVT/DVT/PVT or equivalent), entry and exit criteria, owners, and dates.
Drive qualification and validation of switches, NICs/DPUs, optics, cables, and network operating systems, including interoperability, performance, burn-in, and failure testing.
Run the vendor engagement on new products: roadmap alignment, sample allocation, bug and RMA tracking, firmware and NOS release readiness, and escalation of blocking defects.
Partner with Network Architecture to turn new designs into production-ready reference builds, golden configs, BOMs, cabling and rack standards, and acceptance test plans.
Lead first-of-a-kind pilot builds, capture lessons learned, and feed them back into designs before scale-out.
Own the handoff to Deployment: documentation, training, readiness reviews, and a supply plan that supports the volume ramp.
Track technical, schedule, and supply risks across new product lines; make trade-offs visible and drive decisions with engineering and leadership.
Build the NPI process itself, including templates, gate reviews, dashboards, and reporting, so new platforms land predictably as we grow.
About You
5+ years in technical program management, hardware NPI, or network engineering, with direct ownership of bringing new network hardware or architectures into production.
Experience at a hyperscaler, major network or silicon vendor, or ODM/OEM (e.g. Microsoft, AWS, Meta, Google, Oracle/OCI, NVIDIA, Cisco, Arista, Broadcom), or a comparable large-scale environment.
Hands-on familiarity with hardware qualification: lab validation, interop testing, firmware and NOS lifecycle, defect triage, and phase-gate NPI processes.
Strong technical grounding in data center and cluster networking: Ethernet and InfiniBand fabrics, RoCE, BGP, EVPN/VXLAN, optics and transceivers, and structured cabling.
Proven ability to drive vendors and cross-functional engineering teams to decisions when designs, schedules, and supply are still moving.
Comfortable working in ambiguity, defining process where none exists, and making clear calls on readiness.
Excellent written and verbal communication; comfortable presenting technical trade-offs to senior leadership.
Willingness to travel to vendor labs and pilot sites as needed.
Nice to Have
NPI experience on networking for large GPU clusters, HPC, or AI training environments.
Experience qualifying 400G/800G/1.6T optics, co-packaged or linear-drive optics, or new SerDes generations.
Familiarity with HPC topologies (Fat Tree, Rail-optimized, Dragonfly) and NVIDIA Spectrum-X or Quantum InfiniBand platforms.
Exposure to network automation and test tooling (Python, Ansible, traffic generators such as IXIA/Keysight or Spirent).
Background in supply chain or manufacturing ramp for new hardware.
PMP, PgMP, or similar certification.
Why this role matters
Every new generation of GPU cluster depends on network hardware that has never run at our scale before. This role makes sure each new platform is proven before it reaches a site, so Deployment can build it fast and right the first time.
