Hybrid Opportunity || Associate Project Manager or Coordinator || Houston, TX || Contract

Job Title: JR. Technical Program/Project Manager or Project Coordinator

Location: Houston, TX- Hybrid

Mode of Hire: Contract

Job Description:

Associate Technical Program Manager AI Infrastructure:

• The Associate Technical Program Manager AI Infrastructure supports the coordination, planning, and day-to-day operational management of enterprise AI factory and private cloud infrastructure programs within clients Professional Services delivery environment. This role operates directly under a senior Program Director and serves as the connective tissue across multi-team, multi-supplier program coordination - ensuring priorities are tracked, blockers are surfaced and communicated, governance meetings are organized, and the director's capacity is focused where it matters most.
• The role does not require hands-on technical implementation. It requires enough technical literacy to participate meaningfully in engineering discussions - following the nature of progress and blockers raised by GPU infrastructure, HPC, and container platform teams - and to translate that context into clear, organized communication for the director and broader stakeholder group.

Role Positioning:

• Junior individual contributor operating under direct supervision of a Program Director
• No independent decision-making authority - key decisions remain with the director; this role enables and informs them
• Not the primary external client contact; may represent the director in internal supplier and team coordination meetings when the director is unavailable
• Technical understanding expected at a conceptual and contextual level - not hands-on engineering or architecture
• High-growth role designed for early-career engineers who want to develop into full program leadership over time

Education & Certifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related technical field (required)
• PMI Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM), PMP, or Agile / Scrum certification: preferred; willingness to pursue within 12 months of joining is expected if not already held
• Cloud, infrastructure, or AI-adjacent coursework, academic projects, or certifications are a plus (e.g., AWS Cloud Practitioner, NVIDIA DLI, Linux Foundation Certified IT Associate)

Ideal Candidate Profile:

• Recent engineering graduate who gravitated toward coordination, leadership, and communication throughout their academic career rather than deep technical specialization
• Has led structured teams - student government, technical or engineering clubs, hackathon organizing, sports captaincy, community programs - and knows how to keep people aligned and moving toward a shared goal
• Technically curious and comfortable in rooms with senior engineers; asks good questions, captures accurately, and knows when to listen
• Exceptionally organized - treats structure, documentation, and follow-through as professional instincts, not imposed constraints
• Poised and professional with senior stakeholders; capable of representing the director's position clearly in a meeting without overstepping on decisions
• High growth trajectory - this role is designed for someone who intends to grow into a full Technical Program Manager or Program Director role over a 2 4 year horizon

Mandatory Profile Criteria:

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related technical field (recent graduates welcome; 0 2 years of professional experience)
• Demonstrated organizational leadership track record - student governance, youth programs, technical clubs, hackathon organizing, sports captaincy, or equivalent structured team environments where the candidate coordinated people and drove outcomes
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; comfortable engaging with both senior engineers and non-technical stakeholders
• Highly organized with strong attention to detail, reliable follow-through, and the ability to juggle multiple concurrent workstreams without losing threads
• Willingness to pursue formal project management certification (CAPM, PMP, CSM, or equivalent) within the first year in role

Key Responsibilities:

1. Program Coordination & Execution Support

• Support the Program Director in monitoring delivery progress across AI infrastructure, GPU platform, HPC, and container platform workstreams.
• Maintain and update program plans, milestone trackers, risk logs, and action item registers across all active workstreams.
• Ensure the director has a timely, accurate, and consolidated view of program health across all workstreams and supplier tracks.

2. Meeting Management & Communication

• Own scheduling, agenda preparation, pre-read distribution, and minutes/action item capture for all program governance meetings, team standups, and supplier touchpoints.
• Track and follow up on open action items across engineering teams and suppliers on the director's behalf.
• Step in as the director's proxy in routine coordination and status meetings when the director is unavailable - escalating decisions rather than making them.

3. Technical Context & Blocker Awareness

• Participate in engineering standups, technical reviews, and supplier calls.
• Build sufficient familiarity with AI factory architecture, GPU cluster operations, HPC workload management, and container platforms to accurately capture technical status and blockers.
• Relay technical context to the director clearly and without distortion; flag issues proactively without needing to resolve them.

4. Priority Tracking & Reporting

• Maintain a live consolidated view of program priorities and outstanding decisions; surface these to the director on a defined cadence.
• Prepare concise status summaries, escalation briefs, and decision-ready materials that allow the director to act quickly and confidently.
• Track supplier commitments and engineering team deliverables against agreed timelines; highlight variances before they become escalations.

5. Documentation & Program Administration

• Maintain all program documentation in a structured, current, and accessible state - including program plans, decision logs, RAID logs, and supplier trackers.
• Ensure program artifacts are consistently formatted and ready for director review or stakeholder distribution at short notice.
• Support onboarding of new team members or suppliers by providing organized program context documentation.

6. Professional Development & Program Learning

• Actively build familiarity with client's AI infrastructure portfolio, GreenLake delivery model, and professional services delivery practices.
• Pursue project management certification (PMI-CAPM, PMP, CSM, or equivalent) ideally within the first year in role.
• Contribute observations and improvement suggestions to the director to continuously refine program coordination practices.

Technical Knowledge Expectations:

Conceptual-level understanding of the following areas is expected - not hands-on proficiency, but sufficient familiarity to follow technical discussions, accurately capture what is being said, and communicate it without distortion to the director and stakeholder group:

• AI Factory architecture and client Private Cloud AI - GPU clusters, NVIDIA AI Enterprise, training vs. inference workloads, and what these environments are designed to deliver
• HPC fundamentals - workload schedulers (Slurm, PBS Pro), cluster management tools (HPCM, NVIDIA Base Command Manager), and high-speed networking concepts (InfiniBand)
• Container platform concepts - Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift, SUSE Rancher; understanding what these platforms do in an AI/HPC delivery context and why they matter
• Client GreenLake - consumption model basics and how it shapes delivery commitments and customer conversations
• Hybrid cloud and on-premises infrastructure concepts at a high level - sufficient to understand where decisions and trade-offs arise across supplier boundaries