Associate Program Manager - Delivery Operations

Associate Program Manager - Delivery Operations About Deccan AI Deccan AI is a GenAI data company that runs the post-training and production layer for the world's leading AI labs and enterprises — from expert feedback and RL environments to managed AI workforces and evaluation infrastructure. Backed by A91 Partners, SIG (Susquehanna International Group), and Prosus Ventures, and having grown 10x last year, Deccan works with a majority of the Magnificent 7 and the top frontier labs globally. Its global network of 1 million+ domain experts powers Helix, its hybrid eval suite, and EnterpriseOS, its scaled ops automation platform. Headquartered in Mountain View, CA. ROLE PURPOSE The APM runs day-to-day delivery for a major client engagement. They own throughput, quality and utilisation against KPIs, coordinate across Team Leads, HLQA, Training, Quality and Operations, and keep delivery predictable. This is an execution-first role. It will grow to cover more programs as new projects come up. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES Daily Operations & Delivery ● Own the daily rhythm: volume planning, work allocation, queue health, shift handovers and end-of-day closure. ● Track production against plan and step in early on backlogs, idle capacity or blocked queues. ● Plan capacity and staffing against forecast, including shrinkage, leave and shift coverage. ● Keep turnaround time, batch closure and SLAs on track across all workstreams. Performance Improvement ● Review quality, productivity, utilisation, throughput per head and rework every day and every week. ● Find underperformance at team, batch and individual level, work out why (skill, process, tooling, guidelines or workload) and act on it. ● Run root-cause analysis with Quality and HLQA, and see corrective actions through named owners and dates. ● Turn findings into measurable fixes, such as calibrations, refreshers, revised checklists or reallocating work.Work with Training to bring new joiners up to speed faster. Team Leadership ● Lead about 25 people. Own task allocation, workload balancing and tracking for TLs and HLQA, so every task has an owner, a due date and a closure. ● Hold one-on-ones with Associates, coach them on quality and productivity, and handle recognition and PIPs. ● Work with Team Leads on allocation, escalations and floor execution. Clear blockers and escalate resourcing gaps with options. Cross-Location & Client Coordination ● Align with the Bangalore team on priorities, work split, guidelines, quality standards and reporting, so both sites work to one standard. ● Streamline communication across TLs, HLQA, Training, Quality, Operations and support teams. ● Be the client's daily point of contact on delivery, and prepare and present business reviews. Reporting, Process & Change ● Own the daily, weekly and monthly reports and dashboards, and keep one source of truth for delivery data. ● Turn the data into flagged risks and recommended actions. ● Deliver improvements that measurably cut effort, rework or cycle time, and automate manual work where you can. ● Manage guideline and scope changes across both sites, and keep SOPs current and version-controlled. Governance & Escalations ● Run stand-ups, reviews and retros where decisions are recorded and actions closed. Keep the risk and issue log up to date. ● Handle escalations from start to finish, and fix the root cause so they don't repeat. ● Take on new programs and pilots, support ramp-ups, and build playbooks other accounts can reuse. REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS ● Experience: 3–5 years in delivery operations, including 1–2 years managing a team. BPO, data-services or annotation experience on a large client account is preferred. ● Operations: Hands-on with capacity planning, shift and queue management, SLA tracking and quality or productivity improvement. ● People: Able to lead a team of TLs and individual contributors, coach effectively, and influence peers without direct authority. ● Analytics: Strong in Excel or Google Sheets, and able to build dashboards and make decisions from data. ● Communication: Excellent English, written and spoken. Comfortable running client reviews and calming down escalations. ● Education: Bachelor's degree in any discipline. A postgraduate degree or PMP, CSM, PRINCE2 or Lean Six Sigma certification is a plus. WHAT WE LOOK FOR Hands-on, proactive, focused on improvement, takes ownership, calm under pressure, and adaptable to changing scope. LOCATION & GROWTH On-site in Hyderabad, with occasional travel to Bangalore. General shift, with flexibility to overlap with client hours and cover peak periods. The role leads to Program Manager and then Senior Program Manager or Delivery Lead.