Senior Technical Onboarding & Engagement Manager

Algolia’s Engagement Management Practice plays a critical role in helping customers successfully adopt Algolia and realize value from their investment. We partner with technical and business leaders throughout the onboarding journey to transform customer objectives into structured implementation programs and guide organizations from initial mobilization through successful production launch.

As a Senior Technical Onboarding & Engagement Manager, you will lead a portfolio of complex and strategic customer onboarding programs, owning delivery from pre-to-post sales transition through production launch and handover. You will bring together customer stakeholders, Solutions Architects, Business Consultants, Engineering teams, and external implementation partners to establish a clear delivery strategy, maintain execution momentum, manage dependencies, and drive accountability toward measurable outcomes.

This is a highly autonomous, customer-facing role for someone comfortable operating at the intersection of technical implementation, project leadership, and customer strategy. You will be expected to navigate ambiguity, anticipate delivery risks, lead complex escalations, and make sound decisions when customer objectives, technical constraints, timelines, and business priorities compete.

Beyond your individual customer portfolio, you will help strengthen how Algolia delivers onboarding at scale. You will identify recurring challenges across engagements, improve delivery methodologies and tooling, share reusable approaches, and mentor others across the Engagement Management Practice.

Your Role Will Consist of:

• Partners with Account Executives and Solution Engineers on a structured pre-to-post sales handoff, validating scope, customer objectives, success criteria, resource commitments, implementation readiness, and any delivery risks.
• Defining AI Search requirements and detailed project plans in collaboration with Professional Services teams.
• Own a portfolio of strategic customer onboarding programs from mobilization through production launch, establishing delivery strategy, governance, milestones, dependencies, success criteria and contingencies to ensure go live predictability.
• Partner with Solutions Architects, Business Consultants, Engineering, Global System Integrators, and other stakeholders to translate customer business and technical requirements into actionable implementation plans and scalable delivery approaches.
• Operate independently in ambiguous delivery environments, balancing customer objectives, technical constraints, and competing priorities while maintaining execution momentum.
• Build trusted partnerships with customer leadership, providing clear communication on project health, dependencies, trade-offs, and recommended actions across technical, business, and executive stakeholders
• Anticipate and mitigate delivery risks, leading escalations and navigating difficult conversations around timeline to drive alignment and get delivery back on track.
• Apply strong knowledge of Algolia architecture, AI Search, data, APIs, integrations, and implementation patterns to advise customers and internal teams on technical trade-offs and implementation strategies.
• Lead structured post-launch transitions while identifying opportunities where additional Professional Services support may improve customer outcomes due to expanded scope, implementation complexity, or delivery requirements.
• Improve onboarding at scale by identifying recurring operational gaps, strengthening methodologies, tooling, governance, and playbooks, and mentoring peers through reusable frameworks, lessons learned, and delivery best practices.

• 8+ years of professional experience, including 7+ years leading technical projects or customer-facing software implementations, with demonstrated leadership across complex onboarding programs and cross-functional initiatives.
• Extensive experience leading complex customer implementations and establishing strong delivery governance across project planning, dependencies, risk management, forecasting, resources, escalations, and executive communication.
• Strong technical understanding of software implementation lifecycles, search, data, APIs, integrations, and AI technologies, with the ability to translate business and technical requirements into scalable implementation strategies.
• Demonstrated ability to operate with high autonomy in complex and ambiguous environments, balancing competing customer, technical, and business priorities while influencing stakeholders without direct authority and navigating escalated situations.
• A track record of improving delivery beyond individual engagements through reusable frameworks, operational improvements, best-practice development, and mentoring or coaching peers.

Nice To Have:

• Project Management or Agile certification such as PMP, SAFe, Scrum, or Six Sigma.
• Technical degree in computer science, engineering, information systems, or a related quantitative field.
• Experience working with enterprise SaaS platforms, developer-focused products, APIs, or cloud technologies.
• Experience delivering AI, search, data, or digital experience implementations.
• Experience working with Global System Integrators or other external implementation partners.
• Experience with project and customer management platforms such as Jira, Salesforce, Gainsight, Smartsheet, Asana, Google Workspace, or similar tools.
• Experience developing delivery frameworks, playbooks, governance models, or other approaches that have been adopted by a broader team.