Practice Manager

Description Think of TEKsystems Global Services (TGS) as the growth solution for enterprises today. We unleash growth through technology, strategy, design, execution and operations with a customer-first mindset for bold business leaders. We deliver cloud, data and customer experience solutions. Our partnerships with leading cloud, design and business intelligence platforms fuel our expertise. We value deep relationships, dedication to serving others and inclusion. We drive positive outcomes for our people and our business, and we stay true to our commitments and act in harmony with our words. We exist to create significant opportunity for people to achieve fulfillment through career success. Ready to join us? Here’s what the opportunity supported through our TGS Talent Acquisition Team requires: The AWS Practice Manager is accountable for the growth, operational health, delivery execution, workforce management, and people leadership of the AWS Platform Services customer execution team. The role leads Platform Architects (PAs), engineers, consultants, and delivery leads responsible for delivering AWS transformation programs across a broad range of AWS platform services. This is a technical management role with architecture depth. The Practice Manager must be credible with architects, engineers, customers, sales, and AWS stakeholders, while remaining focused on building a scalable practice rather than acting as the default hands‑on architect. The role partners closely with AWS Technical Delivery Excellence, AWS Strategy, Solutions Architecture, Sales, and Delivery leadership to ensure that customer commitments are achievable, teams are properly allocated, and engagements are executed to a consistently high standard. Core Accountabilities 1. AWS Practice Growth and Operational Leadership • Translate AWS practice strategy and growth targets into workforce, capability, delivery, and investment plans. • Build a scalable operating model that supports growth across AWS migration, modernization, cloud foundations, platform engineering, security, application modernization, data, AI, and managed cloud capabilities. • Establish and run the operating cadence for pipeline visibility, staffing, utilization, delivery health, capability development, and internal priorities. • Identify gaps in skills, capacity, leadership coverage, tooling, and delivery processes; develop practical plans to address them. • Partner with AWS alliance, sales, solutions, strategy, and delivery leaders to align practice capacity with market demand and customer commitments. • Support annual planning, forecasting, hiring plans, investment cases, and practice-performance reporting. 2. Workforce Allocation, Bench and Utilization Management • Own allocation decisions for AWS Platform Services personnel, balancing customer priority, technical fit, employee development, utilization, and delivery risk. • Maintain an accurate forward‑looking view of project demand, roll‑offs, bench, skills availability, and capacity constraints. • Create clear plans for every benched team member, including near‑term placement, billable enablement, certifications, internal assignments, and targeted skill development. • Work across AWS Technical Delivery Excellence, AWS Strategy, Solutions, Sales, and Delivery to understand resource requirements and resolve competing demands. • Escalate material capacity, utilization, or staffing risks early and recommend decisions to senior leadership. • Improve staffing speed, reduce avoidable bench time, and ensure that critical customer work is staffed with the appropriate level and skill mix. 3. Delivery Execution and Customer Outcomes • Own the operating health and execution quality of the AWS Platform Services portfolio, including delivery governance, project reviews, recovery actions, and follow‑through. • Ensure delivery teams have clear roles, appropriate staffing, realistic plans, and timely access to technical escalation. • Implement consistent mechanisms to monitor scope, schedule, quality, customer satisfaction, margin, utilization, and delivery risk. • Partner with Principal Architects and AWS Technical Delivery Excellence on technical health checks, architecture assurance, strategic‑program oversight, and red‑project recovery. • Ensure that delivery issues are surfaced early, assigned to accountable owners, and driven to resolution. • Promote repeatable delivery methods, reusable assets, strong documentation, lessons learned, and continuous improvement across engagements. • Engage directly with customers when leadership intervention is required to reset expectations, resolve execution concerns, or protect delivery outcomes. 4. People Leadership, Performance and Talent Development • Provide direct people leadership for AWS Platform Architects, engineers, consultants, and delivery leads within the customer execution team. • Set clear goals and expectations; conduct effective one‑on‑ones, performance reviews, coaching, feedback, recognition, and corrective action when required. • Develop team leads and senior contributors so that ownership and decision‑making are distributed rather than concentrated in a small number of individuals. • Create career‑development plans aligned to AWS practice needs, employee strengths, billable demand, and progression pathways. • Partner with Principal Architects to provide deep technical mentoring and evaluate readiness for progression from Platform Architect to Principal Architect. • Own certification planning and tracking, ensuring that certification investments support real delivery capability and AWS partnership requirements. • Build an inclusive, accountable culture that values customer outcomes, technical quality, communication, ownership, collaboration, and continuous learning. • Lead hiring, onboarding, succession planning, retention, and performance calibration for the Platform Services organization. 5. SOW, Solution and Delivery Readiness • Collaborate in SOW intake and review process, including review timing, participation, completion, and operational approval. • Validate staffing models, role mix, effort assumptions, delivery timelines, dependencies, and execution feasibility before customer commitment. • Partner with AWS Technical Delivery Excellence and Solutions Architecture to validate technical feasibility, architecture quality, delivery approach, and risk. • Ensure that proposed work aligns with actual AWS practice capability and that capability gaps are explicitly addressed before contract execution. • Improve the transition from solutioning to delivery through structured handoffs, documented assumptions, clear acceptance criteria, and early delivery‑team engagement. • Use delivery lessons and project outcomes to improve future estimates, SOW language, staffing assumptions, and solution patterns. 6. AWS Technical and Practice Leadership • Maintain broad architectural understanding across AWS platform services and remain current on relevant AWS capabilities, patterns, programs, and partner expectations. • Provide informed challenge and guidance on architecture, delivery approach, technical risk, staffing, and team readiness without becoming the default hands‑on technical owner. • Understand common AWS delivery domains, including cloud foundations and landing zones, networking, identity and security, migration, containers and platform engineering, application modernization, data and analytics, observability, automation, resilience, cost optimization, and generative AI services. • Promote the AWS Well‑Architected Framework, security‑by‑design, infrastructure as code, automation, operational readiness, and cost‑conscious architecture across delivery teams. • Partner with AWS Technical Delivery Excellence to define technical standards, escalation thresholds, review mechanisms, and quality expectations. • Represent the practice credibly in customer, partner, sales, and internal leadership discussions. Required Qualifications Significant experience leading cloud consulting, professional services, or technology delivery organizations, including direct people‑management accountability. Demonstrated experience managing AWS‑focused teams delivering complex customer transformation programs. Strong architectural knowledge across broad AWS platform services, with the ability to evaluate technical approaches, identify risk, and coach senior technical professionals. Proven success managing workforce allocation, utilization, bench, capacity planning, hiring, performance, and talent development in a consulting environment. Experience governing delivery portfolios and improving execution across scope, schedule, quality, financial performance, and customer outcomes. Experience reviewing or developing statements of work, delivery estimates, staffing models, assumptions, dependencies, and risk provisions. Ability to operate across technical, commercial, delivery, and people‑leadership domains while establishing clear ownership and decision‑making. Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate risks, priorities, and decisions to executives, customers, AWS, and delivery teams. AWS Associate level certifications Preferred Qualifications AWS Certified - Professional or comparable advanced AWS certification; additional AWS specialty or professional certifications are an asset. Experience with AWS partner programs, competencies, funding mechanisms, opportunity management, or co‑sell motions. Experience building or scaling practices spanning cloud foundations, platform engineering, security, migration, application modernization, data, AI, and cloud operations. Experience leading distributed or geographically dispersed consulting teams. Experience working with enterprise or regulated‑industry customers and complex multi‑workstream programs. Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, information systems, business, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. Measures of Success Improved accuracy and visibility of staffing demand, project roll‑offs, capacity, and bench. Higher productive utilization and reduced avoidable bench time without compromising team development or delivery quality. Consistent project‑health governance, earlier identification of delivery risk, and stronger recovery follow‑through. Improved SOW readiness, staffing feasibility, solution‑to‑delivery handoff, and alignment between sold work and practice capability. Clear performance expectations, reliable one‑on‑one and review cadences, stronger succession coverage, and measurable employee growth. #J-18808-Ljbffr TEKsystems